Goddess Volume One Descention: Book 3: Hunters
by Haley Mitchell
Summary: This book continues the Goddess: Descention story line: In Capricious Queen: Shay finds herself at the mercy of a madman. This story will continue in the forthcoming Goddess: Descention Book 4: Fever. Rated T for Violence, Language, Sexual innuendo and Graphic imagery.
1. Chapter 1

_This story is based upon the world or worlds and characters created by the imaginative minds behind DC comics of which I do not own rights. _

_I also do not claim the rights to the poetry used to inspire each chapter._

_I do however claim rights to the characters I have created in this work._

_Any similarities of characters named or described in this work to real people alive or dead is purely coincidental._

_References to places and locales in existing cities such as New York, Miami and New Orleans are colored with my own imagination and should not be considered accurate._

_All references to Gotham City are however, completely accurate... in my world._

* * *

**Goddess: Descention**

_**Book Three: Hunters**_

_**Prologue: White**_

* * *

**When, In Disgrace With Fortune And Men's Eyes,**

**_When, in disgrace with Fortune and men's eyes,_**

**_I all alone beweep my outcast state,_**

**_And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries,_**

**_And look upon myself and curse my fate,_**

_William Shakespeare (1564-1616)_

* * *

_Miami_

He slept like the dead in satin sheets. His long snow-white hair was stringy and damp from the exertions that caused such an exhausted sleep. The limbs of his pale naked body were entangled within the bedding and with the arms and legs of his bed-mates: The two women he had met in the hotel lounge earlier that night. They slept as deeply as he did, they had earned their rest.

She watched him sleep for several minutes and wondered at his strange transformation. He used to be Nathan Stack; a lowlife drug pusher originally from the mid-west who went to New Orleans to feed his growing addiction to the poison he peddled. Then he disappeared. When he resurfaced his farm-boy tan and sandy hair had lost all color and his baby-blues changed to pink. Whatever he did to himself was drastic but that wasn't why she was there.

She had been watching him for weeks, listening, reading him and he gave no indication he was still an addict. Perhaps his transformation had something to do with that too.

He wasn't the only one: He had met with another before he left New Orleans for Miami, she had been watching that other one first. Nathan Stack had made contact with a new underground organization: Niveus Noctis. Her first target had been recruiting for them but hadn't undergone the transformation when Nathan first met with him. They had soon become fast friends, mostly because he had provided Nathan with a seemingly endless supply of drugs, then they both disappeared.

Later that first target was found floating in the Mississippi with his throat cut, his hair had lost all pigment and his eyes were blood red. The authorities could not offer an explanation so far that didn't include voodoo and she didn't stay in the Big Easy to find out if they came up with anything else. He was dead and Nathan Stack wasn't.

Two nights later she had watched the former Nathan Stack stumble back to the seedy motel he had been staying at. The next morning she followed him to the airport and he had become the man he was now.

The people above him were recruiting from the scum of every large city in the country. Not many, just a few here and there and if the new recruits didn't end up dead they were well taken care of: Given new identities, five-star accommodations, and money. She focused again on his starkly white sleeping form, _living the good life aren__'__t you Nathan__…_

* * *

The man formerly known as Nathan Stack's blissful dreams became troubled as a heaviness, an oppressive weight on his chest pulled him from his slumber… He awoke to a dark shadow holding him down and he felt something cold and razor sharp against his pale throat.

Out of the darkness a voice whispered, dripping menace: "This Horace… This, is how easy it is to get to you…" It was a woman, he could tell that much but little else. "The muscle in the hallway won't come running so screaming won't help you." He stole a glance at the women he brought to his bed. They hadn't woken, and he could smell the sickly-sweet chemical scent of chloroform in the air. The voice whispered again. "They won't be awake any time soon either Horace, I wanted you all to myself."

Horace finally found his own voice, "W-who are you?"

"I'm your worst nightmare Horace, or should I say Nathan? You can change your name, your face, even your entire body it seems but you can't hide from me."

"Wh-what do you want?"

"Information, and you better hope you can deliver…" He felt pressure frighteningly close to his groin, pressure that threatened worse as her knee slowly pushed down.

In spite of the pain growing in his precious nether regions Horace growled back at his assailant, "You have no idea who you're dealing with…"

"No, _you_ have no idea the lengths I am willing to go to get what I want."

"Then what exactly is it that you want?"

"Your boss, your shot-caller."

"Why?"

"Maybe I want to join your little organization…"

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"Please Horace, I know all about you're little gang of albino vampires."

"If you really want in there are better ways to do it."

"I just wanted to get your attention Nathan, can I call you Nathan?"

"You'll need my recommendation; this isn't the way to get it."

Horace/Nathan felt a sharp pain and a warm trickle weep from his neck. "I could just kill you and take your place…"

"Killing me would do you no good."

"I don't know about that _Horace_, I don't think you're as irreplaceable as you'd like to believe. Remember your friend in New Orleans? I'm sure _he_ thought he was important too…"

"H-he wasn't worthy…"

"And you are?" he felt the sharp object against his skin bite deeper and his assailant's voice grew colder, "You are nothing Nathan, just a junkie who thinks he got lucky, they'll use you then throw you away, just like the others."

"No, you don't understand…" She sighed, he was a believer.

"Then explain it to me Nathan."

"I-I can't."

"Give me your boss then and I'll ask him, maybe he'll be more eloquent, then you and I can both pretend this magical night never happened."

"I can't, they'll kill me!"

"I can kill you too…"

"I don't know who the top people are."

"Yes you do Nathan, there's all kinds of information stored in that feeble junkie brain of yours and you are going to tell me." He was afraid, she could tell but of them more than her. This confrontation was risky and she had a fleeting thought that maybe she should have stayed hidden and continued the surveillance but someone else was watching Horace too, she felt she couldn't wait any longer. She was growing angry; she didn't think she was going to get what she wanted tonight, then miraculously...

"All I know is they are sending me to New York, I don't know anymore than that." Unnoticed, Horace's assailant's breath caught in her throat, _Damn, not New York__…_But she quickly recovered…

"You're lying to me Nathan, you know who they are."

"You'll never get to him, he's well protected."

"So were you… A name Horace, just a name and then I'll go away."

"If they find out …"

He gasped as the pain in his groin increased, "It will be nothing compared to what I'll do to you. Just a name, he won't learn who gave him up."

"S-Spar, Devin Spar."

"Very good Horace, see how easy that was?" The pressure on his groin subsided, then… "Sweet dreams…" She whispered as a swift fist sent Horace/Nathan back to slumber-land.

She looked down at the manufactured albino. She felt like she needed a shower. His thin pallid body disgusted her, and… he was lying. Devin Spar wasn't the name of his real superior. Spar was the candyman, the chemist, and just another rung in the ladder with delusions of grandeur, but it didn't matter. What she was really after from this pale worm wasn't a name at all it was a place and she got that; New York City. If Niveus Noctis stayed true to their pattern, her real target would be in New York soon as well. She was getting close and she should have been elated but she wasn't. She sighed, _New York. I suppose it was inevitable. At least it wasn__'__t Gotham,_ she shuddered at that thought,_ Gotham City would have been worse, much worse__…__ But why did it have to be New York? _She had stayed away for so long but now… Now it was time to go home.

* * *

Outside, on a roof across from the high-end hotel another shadow moved cautiously. This shadow wore black and dark blue body armor that displayed the symbol of a bird on his chest. He had been recording his target's sordid activities for days and tonight's venue had been more of the same. He was hoping his target would receive a call or say something about his next move. Instead, night after night he would lure some woman or women to his hotel room for a roll and promptly kick them out the next morning without so much as a thank-you. The guy was a prince.

Since tonight seemed to be no different from the last three he had decided to get some much needed sleep but as soon as he drifted off his surveillance system's alarm went off: He wasn't getting a signal from the device he had planted in the target's hotel room. He had gone up to the roof to check the dish but it was just as he left it and it was functioning normally. The device itself was being jammed. He looked towards the target room, it was dark and he saw no movement within. He watched for several moments, and then…

In the pre-dawn twilight he saw a shadow move from his target's balcony twelve floors up and descend in a controlled fall to the ground below, but too fast and too far away for him to follow. A quiet beep from the surveillance device attached to the parabolic dish indicated that it was working again, whatever was jamming the signal ceased as the shadowy figure left the area. From the ground he could hear the distinctive but unusually quiet sound of a motorcycle drive away.

With the device again functioning he could hear his target in the hotel room stir…

* * *

Head pounding, Horace crawled over the prone forms of the women in his bed and groped his way toward his clothes and pulled a phone from his pant's pocket. Just inside the door of his hotel suite he found his unconscious bodyguards and sneered at their ineptitude.

Still naked he stood at the window as the sun slowly rose and made a call. He listened to the ringing in his ear as he gazed out the sliding balcony doors. He looked like a ghost in the reflection of the glass, or a vampire's victim as blood oozed from the cut on his neck and dripped darkly down his pale skin. He had to shield his sensitive eyes from the brightness of the rising sun as he waited for his real superior to answer. When the other line finally picked up Horace simply said, "We have a problem."

* * *

_To be continued..._


	2. Chapter 2

**Goddess: Descention**

_**Book Three: Hunters**_

_**Part One: Lunar Maria**_

* * *

**Her Kind**

**_I have gone out, a possessed witch,_**

**_Haunting the black air, braver at night;_**

**_Dreaming evil, I have done my hitch_**

**_Over the plain houses, light by light:_**

**_Lonely thing, twelve-fingered, out of mind._**

**_A woman like that is no woman, quite._**

**_I have been her kind._**

_Anne Sexton_

_(1928-1974)_

* * *

_Lunar Maria..._

_The moon bared it__'__s scarred face, flaunting it__'__s bright radiance but revealing its dark imperfections. _Lunar maria_; the dark places of the moon. _Maria_ is __'__seas__'__ in Latin. The ancients thought they were oceans, those dark places of the moon. Perhaps they imagined black lunar seas with great grey waves that crashed against white cliffs and pounded them into moon-dust which was caught up by the solar wind and propelled across the moon__'__s shining highlands to finally settle inside massive, dead, craters. _

_Black lunar seas where dark creatures hunt and feed on those weaker than themselves, until only the strongest and most cunning survive. An imaginary cycle of life and death in the coldness of space and a bleak, colorless mirror of the world below__…_

_Lunar maria are primeval lava flows of dark molten basalt, the aftermath of primordial volcanic eruptions. Tides of this dark magma from beneath the moon__'__s thin crust were drawn to the surface by the pull of earth__'__s gravity where it oozed and seared the moon__'__s surface billions of years ago__…_

_The ancients thought the dark places of the moon were seas, but they__'__re just scars. Everything has scars. _

_Excerpt from _Walking in Darkness

_By _Virginia Zsasz

Gotham City

* * *

_New York City_

She was dead. She had passed through the fragile membrane that separated the living world from the realm of death and… she was dead. Vaguely she remembered darkness and a shrieking howling wind, but she had no memory of her life before, only a sense of warmth and safety but that too was fading. She knew in her soul that she was indeed dead…

Then there was light. Blindingly intense. She wondered if this was the way it was supposed to be and if it was, why did the light hurt so much. Then she realized it wasn't the light that was causing her pain, it was something else...

It was like a thousand needle-sharp teeth took hot frenzied bites out of her. She felt as if she was submerged in a vat of acid: Drowning and burning all at once. She was beyond panic but she couldn't fight back against this and she couldn't escape it. She was helpless as it oozed into her mouth stifling a silent scream, she felt it invade her nostrils, her ears, every pore was seared by it's passing. It filled her, burned her inside-out. It was killing her, but if she was already dead… was this… hell?

Her entire body convulsed as she cried out and fell with a hard thump on a carpeted floor. She lay there with her scream still ringing in her ears and struggled with the inescapable dread the nightmare inspired. She whimpered as she sat up and drew her knees against her chest and wrapped her arms tightly around them and tried to calm her chaotic mind and her frantically beating heart. She'd had that nightmare before and though it was especially distressing it wasn't the worst one. She had many nightmares, but reality was the only one she couldn't wake up from.

A clock radio, the standard issue for every economy motel room in the country, teetered on the edge of the bedside table. It announced in red glowing numbers that it was 5:30 pm before it too fell to the floor with it's own small thump, but she didn't notice. She sat rocking to an internal rhythm, almost inaudibly she whispered over and over again… _"__I am a mountain, I am a mountain, I am a mountain.__"_ She squeezed her eyes shut, her hands in white knuckled fists, she continued, almost growling the words… _"__I am a mountain surrounded by the sea. The waves crash against the edges, but they cannot reach the summit, they cannot reach the summit__…__ I am the mountain, I am it__'__s summit, the waves cannot reach me, they cannot reach me, they cannot touch me.__"_Over and over she repeated the words until her rocking slowed and finally stopped; eyes open again, she stared at nothing. She remained in that trance-like state for a very long time.

She was trained as a child to recite this mantra, it is as needful to her as insulin is to a diabetic. She repeats it upon waking everyday, it has saved her sanity, her life. This simple meditative exercise has allowed her to survive. When she was very young, before she was taught the technique of autohypnosis and deep meditation her chaotic mind very nearly destroyed her...

Soon after she was born her parents began to notice that there was something dreadfully wrong with their daughter. She was prone to violent mood swings; from fits of crying and rage to catatonia. It became more prevalent as she grew older. Though she remembers little of her childhood, she knew that at three years of age she had a seizure and her parents' worry turned to alarm, it was more than a behavioural problem, as their pediatrician had assumed. Her parents had brought her to numerous doctors and various specialists who diagnosed her with everything from epilepsy to schizophrenia, but PET scans, MRI's even spinal taps revealed nothing that could cause her symptoms. The only thing they could discern was that her brain was above normal with twice the neural activity a child her age was supposed to have, but that shed no real light on her condition; all other aspects of her brain including structure and chemistry were normal. With all medical possibilities exhausted the doctors referred the family to a psychiatric facility. They took her to Arkham Asylum.

Her stay at the asylum was extremely brief because her condition worsened dramatically by simply passing through it's gates. Every moment she spent there only exacerbated her symptoms. What neither her parents nor any of her doctors could understand then was the child's duress did not initiate from within her own mind, it was external; it stemmed from emotions that were not the child's own. The little girl's brain was unique, there was a reason for all that neural activity: Her mind was wired to receive the emotions generated by those near her. It wasn't telepathy; she couldn't pluck thoughts out of people's heads, it didn't work that way. All she sensed were emotions, but it was every emotion every living person around her felt, everything, all the time. Be it anger, love, joy, despair or pain from whatever the cause, she felt it with them but she could not understand them and the child didn't know where they came from. Surrounded by the broken minds of Arkham almost did irreparable damage. The scattered, disjointed and frightened minds of the insane asylum enveloped her and sent her into a horrific panic. They had to finally sedate her but even when she slept the emotions swirled around in her head and penetrated her dreams, creating unspeakable nightmares.

She had no control over the emotional onslaught, and was deprived of any relief. The child was losing whatever it was that made her an individual because she could not separate her own emotions from those around her. She was drowning in a sea of sensation and there was no one who could save her. Her stay in Arkham Asylum lasted three hellishly long days.

She and her small family were moved from the asylum to another facility. The government officials that came to take them away told her parents that they could help her control her ability but their real aim was to control her. The girl's parents began to lose access to their child as the government doctors restricted their visits more and more in the months the child was in their hidden facility.

The young couple feared for their daughter, for when they were allowed to see her she was listless and heavily medicated. The girl's mother, who had the strongest mental link to the child could barely reach her. One evening they snuck in to the girl's room and found her catatonic, her hair had been shaved off and there were fresh scars and circular lesions all over her head. They were horrified and began to formulate a plan. The child's father used his own government contacts and called in every favor he could and finally they managed to take their daughter away from that terrible place but they knew they and their daughter would spend the rest of their lives hiding from those people; the sinister doctors and the men in dark suits. But they were not the only danger the small family hid from.

The girl's mother had a secret. As the girl grew she would learn only bits and pieces from her frightened mother. All she would come to know was that she and her mother both were hunted and not just by the government. There was something else out there in the world that wanted her for her ability and her mother feared it, or him far more than the secret government agency. As a result they moved from city to city constantly hiding and trying to find help for their troubled daughter.

Since medical science had failed her the child's parents searched for alternatives. They roamed the country like nomads trying to find a way to ease their daughter's tormented mind. Finally they returned to Gotham City and found hope in the form of an old Asian couple. The old woman taught the child to control her gift, how to separate her 'self' from the swirling emotions around her through techniques of meditation. Even at so young an age the child learned quickly; her life and sanity depended on it. She came to understand what she had been experiencing and over time learned to control her gift, even to use it. The old man taught the girl discipline through martial arts and she was gifted in that realm as well.

With her mind and body finally in balance, the little girl thrived… Until fate attempted to destroy her again, but she had closed her mind to those memories, refusing to think of them. The only time they surfaced was when her guard was down in sleep and then they would relentlessly invade her dreams and nightmares.

While awake, with her mental barriers up it was easier to forget. Nothing exists for her but the here and now, it's all she has. She won't allow herself to think about her painful past because she can't change it and if she let herself dwell on it, well, it was counter-productive to her survival and she had promised she would never give up again. If she did those who opposed her would win and all that she had lost would have been for nothing. She would never let that happen, she would never squander their sacrifice again. She had made a promise but she was finding it harder and harder to stay true to it.

Now she lives the life of the hunted and in perpetual hiding. Paranoia has made her especially adept at camouflage. Her small stature and short, dark and unruly hair allow her to pass for a teenage boy though she is almost a decade past her teens. The choice of the clothing she wears in public aids the illusion; baggy jeans, oversized army jacket and a baseball cap. Just another runaway or delinquent no one notices, but she notices everyone. Every emotion behind every face is known to her. White noise beyond the barrier her mind creates everyday to protect her. A flat thrumming noise that stays in the background unless something spikes with an urgency that demands attention. It is why she avoids the crowded day. Even as a child she was nocturnal, for her the night is easier; not as many souls awake to spike her awareness.

Everything she owns she carries in a backpack and in the saddlebags on her motorcycle. Homeless, she lives under the radar moving from city to city, just another face in the faceless crowds. Nameless, she functions on the edges of society without any record of her existence. The tormented child she was has been dead a long time now and her name is buried with her. Those few people whom she has had to deal with know her only as 'Shay'; a loose tie to a life that doesn't exist anymore, an echo of a dead past.

Red glowing characters flowed across her vision… bE: L. She is puzzled until she realized she had been staring at the clock, upside-down on the floor. It was seven thirty-nine and she was running out of time, she hadn't planned to sleep so long and she certainly didn't plan on the nightmare or the prolonged trance because of it. She tried to get up quickly but her muscles protested; she had been on the floor too long. She rose slower and headed for the bathroom to stretch out the kinks in the shower.

Later, fully dressed but not in baggy jeans and a khaki jacket, Shay was dressed for work. Tonight the hunted becomes the hunter. She wore a matte black custom-made body armor over her slim athletic form; lightweight Kevlar combined with thin metal plates that protect vital areas but allow an ease of movement and speed. A small triangular pack fit over her stomach, with neat compartments inside that hold the tools of her trade. There were also places for other tools and weapons hidden throughout the armor. Before she donned the gloves she applied the finishing touch; diagonal streaks of black camouflage paint across her face; a different type of blending is required tonight.

She took one last glance in the bathroom mirror, and paused. Shay looked into her own eyes; almond shaped, hazel-green but almost amber in the room's light. She studied the facial features that some would call attractive; an almost regal visage with a hint of the exotic obscured by thick slashes of black grease-paint, but beauty means nothing to her except that it stands out. Her mother was beautiful and she suffered for it. Shay underscores her own beauty, hides it; it is a liability not an asset. Thus, it is not vanity that caused her to pause and gaze at her own reflection, it is disorientation … For a fleeting moment she doesn't recognize the image she sees. Her heart skips a beat as she tentatively brings a hand up to her face, pale under the black; her expression is confused and wary… Then it passes. She lowered her hand and tried to shake off the disjointed feeling but that sensation is not new to her, she's felt it before and it's always been a bad omen.

Shay scanned the room one last time, making sure she has left no trace of her short stay before she turned and walked out into the night. In light of her brief indistinctive encounter with the bathroom mirror her confidence waned slightly but not her determination. She'd waited too long for this opportunity to hesitate over a superstition now. A sign, omen whatever it was, it didn't matter, all that mattered was her target. It had taken weeks to track her down and months before that to find a clue to the person who had destroyed her world, over and over again. Simple revenge perhaps, but there was nothing simple about it. They have hunted her since before she was born, but now… Now it was her time to hunt.

* * *

_The New City_

She huddled in the dark against the bars of her cage like a small frightened animal and cringed at every sound. He would leave her here alone in the darkness for hours sometimes. She wasn't sure which she hated more, the solitary blackness that surrounded her or being in the light, with _him_.

When she first woke up; was it yesterday? The day before? Time had lost all meaning. She was still groggy from whatever he had given her that had knocked her out. The last thing she remembered was falling asleep while reading in her own apartment, the next thing she knew she had been laying on a dirty mattress, her hands and feet were bound behind her back and there was a dirty rag in her mouth. She remembered laying eyes on him for the first time and watched him, enthralled but with growing terror as he welded together the bars that would become her cage.

There was a surreal quality to the situation she had found herself in as she watched the sparks fly around his silhouette, like this was some terrible nightmare. When his work on the cage was finished he had walked toward her still wearing the welder's visor. Absurdly, a strange thought had erupted in her mind; perhaps he was an alien that had abducted her for some otherworldly purpose… But then he pulled the visor up and she remembered looking into his pale empty eyes and she remembered screaming through her gag as he smiled down at her. If she was dreaming she fervently pleaded with the powers that be to wake her up.

She woke again later inside the cage, in darkness. Her hands and feet were no longer bound but she could feel the rawness the binds had left on her wrists. Her enclosure was small, she could not stand inside of it and even when she was sitting it's ceiling was only inches above her head. There was a door to the cage but it was locked with a heavy padlock.

She hadn't been out too long she knew because as she inspected her enclosure she found some of the welds were still warm. She didn't know much about welding but she thought that perhaps she could break free if the welds hadn't cooled completely. She savagely kicked and pummelled the bars of her make-shift cage but to no avail. The welds did not even bend and the whole enclosure was bolted into the ground. She was trapped and she didn't even know why.

In the darkness she tried in vain to come up with a reason why someone, anyone would want to kidnap her. She was no one. She wasn't married, she had no children. The meagre savings she managed to accumulate, which had only just broke into five digits, would go to her sister's infant daughter should anything happen to her...

Now something _had_ happened. She sobbed, alone in her cage. She thought about her little sister's new baby, would she ever see her niece, her godchild, again? She wanted to have a child of her own someday, lots of women had children in their forties these days, there was still time, wasn't there? She thought of Glen, they had only been dating for two months but she felt something, did he too? Does it matter now? Still crying, she grew angry and kicked at the bars and screamed in rage, "LET ME OUT!" Then a light flickered on.

The flashlight shone directly into her face and she shielded her eyes with a hand. It bobbed as it came closer, a floating light in the blackness and she could not see who held it but she spoke to him, "Why am I here? Please tell me. If it's money…"

Her blood turned cold when she heard him rasp, _"__It thinks money can buy it__'__s freedom.__"_ His low chuckle sounded like sandpaper rubbed against gravel.

It. He called her 'it'. She had remembered something she saw in a movie once. Some woman had been abducted and the television would repeatedly say her name in hopes her abductor would be watching and begin to think of his victim as a person rather than an object… Making it… harder… for him… to… kill her… She shuddered at that realization because in the movie it had been a serial killer and he had repeatedly called the woman he had abducted 'it'. That couldn't be what was happening to her, could it? The odds were astronomical. That couldn't be what this was… _Oh God please don__'__t let that be!_

She swallowed her terror and tried another approach, if she could reason with him, appeal to his humanity… "S-Susan, m-my name is Susan. I-I don't know why I'm here, but if you let me go I won't tell anyone about this. Y-you can still do the right thing. There's p-people that will be looking for me… Please, just let me go!"

He was quiet as he stood there holding the light in her face. He didn't say anything for a long while and hope rose within her, _was he thinking about letting me go?_

Then he spoke again, _"__If it is silent it will eat, if not it will starve.__" _Then the light went off. In the blackness she cried out, "Please! My name is Susan! Susan! Please let me go! Pleeease!" Her sobbing cries ignored, he left her alone in the darkness, again.

She had slept for a time, her dreams filled with rasping whispers and evil eyes. When she awoke again there was light and sound. In the dim glow of the lamplight that lit the chamber she cringed against the bars of her cage as the reality of her situation truly sank in. She watched him pacing, he was wearing blue-jeans and a long-sleeved sweatshirt with it's hood pulled up over his head. He was whispering to himself and that somehow made this all more real: He wasn't a demon from a nightmare, he was a man. A man with complete control over her… All she could do was watch and listen and hope.

For the first time Susan got a good look at the room she was in. The walls and ceiling were rough cement, unfinished, not smooth like the basement of a house. Her cage seemed to be in an alcove of the main body of the rectangular room, but not closed off, she could see everything in the room except an exit. She could only guess that was around the corner from the nook she was in, _so very close_. The dirty mattress was still there, pushed aside in a corner and she shuddered to think that it was his bed she had been laying on when she first woke up. Next to that was a small wooden table and on it was a lamp; the type used when camping, kerosene or oil she supposed. On the floor in another corner was a brown paper bag and a crate of some kind of canned food. She could see little else in the dim light until he picked up the lamp and moved toward the wall.

He had inscribed symbols on the surface of the walls. Some were simple circles, squares and triangles others were intricate and bizarre with long flowing lines that ended in circles or spirals and she had no idea what they meant. His whispering grew louder when he traced his fingers around a large circle that had smaller symbols drawn inside. Seeing them and the manner with which he showed the obscure symbols reverence scared her more than anything that had happened to her since the initial abduction. She could hear his rasping voice, _"__Shining, shining sword, that one is done, and that one, and that, all that came before are finished, seven now, the seventh one__…__ it__'__s almost time, almost time to shine.__"_

She involuntarily gasped and he turned to her, he smiled as his gaze fell on her and he whispered, _"__The seventh.__" _Then he turned away and reached inside the brown paper bag. Then he rose and walked toward her, that sickly smile still on his face… He reached inside her cage and she shrunk away from him. Eyes glittering in the lamplight he whispered, _"__Almost time, almost time to shine__…__ Sssusssannn.__"_ Then he dropped the object he had been holding in his hand at her feet. It was just an apple, but she screamed then, and he laughed his rasping sandpaper laugh and she screamed harder and louder, she screamed and he laughed and she screamed and screamed and screamed…

* * *

_To be continued..._


	3. Chapter 3

**Goddess: Descention**

_**Book Three: Hunters**_

_**Part Two: Meetings**_

* * *

**Acquainted With The Night**

**_I have been one acquainted with the night._**

**_I have walked out in rain-and back in rain._**

**_I have outwalked the furthest city light._**

_Robert Frost_

_(1874-1963)_

* * *

_New York City_

Shay raced through the streets of the Big Apple on an old Indian. The motorcycle, a circa 1940's Indian Scout, had been totally rebuilt to run as quietly as possible but with much more power than the original manufacturers could achieve, but it still looked it's age. It was riddled with scuff marks and dirt, it's chrome accoutrements and trademark Indian head logo had been covered over in matte black, heat-resistant paint; like it's rider it was designed to blend in, to disappear. Shay weaved through the light traffic to her destination; an old unused warehouse in Brooklyn's east end. Through the tinted visor of her helmet Shay saw the familiar streets and avenues as she passed by but drowned the memories they stirred. This was no time for nostalgia.

Two blocks away from the target building Shay hid her bike and her belongings in an old shed adjacent to a long abandoned garage and proceeded from there on foot. She had some time to scout the location, the party wasn't scheduled to start yet and none of the guests had arrived so far as she emerged from an alley on the street opposite the warehouse. It was a large building, two stories high with large bay doors tall enough for semi- trucks to back into. There were small windows high on the walls just under the flat roof and a few more at ground level but those were boarded up; near the offices or reception, she guessed. In between the bay doors and the lower windows there was a smaller man-sized door. A chain-link fence encircled the entire area including the parking lot but it sagged and in some places was completely bowed over. On the far side of the compound opposite Shay's vantage point, marshland lay beyond the twisted fence.

Before she advanced Shay carefully opened her mind and scanned the area but detected no one in the immediate vicinity. Sometimes her ability was useful but Shay would gladly give it up to avoid the life it had forced upon her.

She sprinted across the street and silently jumped the leaning fence and in just a few seconds Shay was at the lower windows approaching the small door, her lock picks already in her hand. A few seconds later she was inside and locked the door behind her; she wanted to leave no indication that anyone was there.

The light from the street outside dimly lit the room through the cracks between the boards in the windows but Shay brought her own illumination. She panned her small flashlight around and saw that the large room was bare except for a reception counter and a couple of broken office chairs. Deeper inside the room Shay could see partitions, office cubicles and beyond them opposite the main entrance there was a door. Another door to her right was open and led to the warehouse floor. Tall racks that reached almost to the ceiling dominated the huge area where whatever this warehouse stocked were stacked high on pallets, but now the racks were empty. The door at the far end was unlocked as well and behind it a short hallway was lined with other entrances; restrooms, an electrical room and another door that also opened onto the warehouse floor.

Shay didn't like this, normally she planned things much more carefully. She should already know who owned the building, what it stocked, when it closed down and it's layout. It bothered her going into a situation blind, but this came up too quickly. She had driven all night and most of the day to get there and that left her no time to do any research, or to properly prepare and she just didn't have the resources she used to have. No base of operations, no safe place to plan, people she could trust. It was all here, _they_ were all here, in the city but she hadn't contacted anyone. She wouldn't put them in danger again. She would just have to make do with what she had. She would finish her sweep of the building and prepare for the party. This time the only person she intended to risk was herself.

* * *

Nightwing landed lightly on the roof of a textile factory across from a recently abandoned electronics warehouse and hid in the shadows as a dark sedan drove up to the gate. He knew there was going to be a meet and that it was going to be big. A truce was called for tonight and almost every major gang, illegal organization and crime family in New York was sending a representative to this meeting at that warehouse, including the organization Nightwing was tracking as favor for Bruce. As he watched various cars approach and drive through the now open gate of the unused warehouse he thought; this 'favor' had a life of it's own, it's snowballed into something major.

Nightwing was a little conflicted; a favor. His word, not Batman's. When He called it was 'I want you to do this …' not, 'could you please…' Asking was something Batman didn't do and saying no to _Him_ was something Nightwing didn't do, even now, long after he had left Gotham City. Dick was pleased that _He_ trusted him to investigate this on his own but it still rankled that when Batman said 'jump', Dick still asked, 'yes sir, how high?' _…__ I__'__m still trying to impress him, even after all this time_. Still, it was not like Bruce to ask him to take over a case when it was common for Batman to juggle several at once. Maybe it was because this case encompassed more than Gotham; it had sent him to several cities along the east coast and Batman had a lot to do with the latest Arkham escapes. Maybe, but Nightwing had a hunch there was more to it, he just couldn't fathom what. He would work on figuring that out later, tonight this case might just break wide open and he would find out what was really going on; on both fronts.

It all started with an obscure drug sample Batman had found on what he thought was a routine guns for drugs deal, the same night as the last Arkham escapes about a week ago. But this case got complex fast.

The truck that was loaded with vials of the sample Batman obtained was stolen from an industrial lot and Nightwing found it abandoned near the docks but it was empty except for the tracking device Batman planted in it. There were no ships scheduled to arrive at that particular pier or any adjacent one that night and no witnesses saw the truck or anyone near it until later that morning. Dead end.

The substance in the vials was lysergic acid diethylamide, or more commonly; LSD, and each tiny vial contained hundreds of doses but there was more to it. Mixed with the drug there was a compound called topoisomerase: An enzyme that binds to DNA and there are several types. In medicine one type of these enzymes would be introduced into a patient to treat bacterial infections, even cancer because they attack the harmful cells directly, but this particular type was unprecedented, and if introduced into a human, it is unknown what it will do. So far all the tests done show the substance is inert, binding to human DNA in preparation for something else. Something else that will use the enzyme as a doorway into the DNA of each cell affected.

The men that were captured knew nothing except that the deal was for a relatively small load of ordinance for that entire truckload of contraband. The three black clothed fighters that Batman also captured probably knew more but they had disappeared before Nightwing and the police arrived. The only real information the police obtained was the name of the organization they were dealing with, but not the name of the person with white hair that Batman had seen.

During his investigation Nightwing learned that the organization was called Niveus Noctis, Latin for 'White Night' and they've been busy. They have been making contacts among the underworld all up and down the coast, beginning in Miami, or at least that is as far as Nightwing tracked them before the trail grew too cold to backtrack any further. It always seemed to be the same operative though; a man in a long dark coat with white hair, but witnesses who have seen this person all disagree with any other details of his description. Nightwing himself found him in Miami and followed him here, but his contacts in other cities claim he was there too, at the same time. Some say he is in his twenties or thirties, some say forties or fifties. Some reported that he's an albino, others say he's just very pale. The witnesses can't even agree on how long his hair was, or on the accent Batman noticed, but they all agreed on his name; Horace. So, either Horace is one man with a penchant for partially disguising himself or there are several white haired drug pushers named Horace peddling enzyme laced LSD in every major city on the east coast. _Wonder what Occam would think of this little conundrum_.

After several minutes it looked as though all the players had arrived and it was time for Nightwing to move in. They had posted men on the outside to guard against any unwanted visitors. They were watching the street though, not the marshland on the far side of the building. Nightwing circled around behind the guards and entered the warehouse from the back through a narrow window near the roof.

* * *

Inside the warehouse in a dark corner Shay was concerned. She could hear the gangsters arrive at the front of the building and they were early but that's not what worried her. The strategically placed incendiary devices she found during her quick sweep of the building did. They all seemed to be connected to wiring that led back to the electrical room in the office. The men that were arriving at the front in the pitch darkness may decide to turn on the lights and that just might be what the devices were wired into. But Shay didn't know for sure, she had to get back to the electrical room to be certain.

Shay silently made her way back to the front of the building as the assorted criminals trickled in. Lighters flared with tiny flames that lit the gangsters' faces. There were about a dozen of them milling about near the bay doors now and more were coming in. They were voicing their concern that the people that arranged this meeting hadn't shown yet. It was dangerous having so many rivals in one place, she thought, yet two major players and several low level gangs were conspicuous by their absence as far as Shay could tell, and so was the hosts of this little party; Shay's target. The men were posturing, portraying composure they didn't feel. Shay sensed their suspicion, and knew it was well founded, this party was a trap.

Shay's paused her progress toward the office; her sixth sense drew her attention away from the irritated men. She felt someone else and scanned the area again. She sensed something; curiosity, anticipation, there was someone else here, somewhere behind her but she couldn't see anything. A cop maybe, or a security guard, but if he was smart he'd be scared and Shay didn't feel any real fear from him, just caution. She silently cursed. Her target didn't show, this place was wired to blow and if a cop was here now, that meant there were likely more on the way, and she was caught in the middle of it.

Shay looked through the tall racks at the men just a few yards away. There would be some big names in the criminal underworld if those who were invited showed. None at the very top, but close to it. They were criminals but they were loyal, even if this place was raided it was unlikely the police could make much of a dent in any of their respective organizations. The police didn't worry Shay as much as the bombs did. On her way back to the office she found another one. As she inspected it she pondered; if she were a new drug merchant as this Niveus Noctis was, would she want to have to deal with all these various drug lords or would she dispense with their major lieutenants in one fell swoop.

She looked back at the disreputable men. Shay knew the politics of the underworld, it was almost the same in every major city. Truces were made and discarded on a daily basis. Wars were fought in the night with guerrilla tactics; drive-by shootings, hit-men, snipers and kidnappings. It wasn't just the gangsters themselves that were targeted either, it was their friends and families as well, even if they had no affiliation with criminality. With those two major organizations missing from this collection of criminals blame would laid at their feet for whatever happened tonight. This could start a gang war that would encompass the city and result in many innocent people caught in the crossfire, as she was about to be. Shay looked down at the device again; she could just walk away, she had no stake in the outcome tonight, her reason for being here didn't show. She wasn't a crusader, at best she was a mercenary, at worst a common thief and she wasn't getting paid to risk her life tonight.

* * *

Through the night-vision lenses Nightwing wore over his mask he could see a figure standing over a device that looked much like a bomb. He had noticed this person skulking around in the darkness unseen by the criminals up front and went to investigate. As he made his way closer he found several of the same devices this unknown person was standing over strategically placed around the warehouse. He had been told that the 'Horace' that escaped Batman had a number of black clad protectors, dressed much like this solitary one. He also knew that Niveus Noctis so far hadn't made an appearance tonight. That meant that this wasn't a meeting, it was a trap.

Nightwing advanced toward this dark unknown figure. He would prevent whatever tragedy this person was about to engage. He moved silently, he was trained by the best but something was wrong. The figure's posture changed and just as Nightwing was about to reach out to subdue, the figure turned to face him.

Shay had felt him advance on her but she couldn't tell the direction, whomever he was he was good, but her senses never failed her, very few had actually succeeded in sneaking up behind her. As she turned she deflected the arm that reached for her and saw at once he wasn't a cop, he was a mask. She tended to avoid these masked vigilantes in her travels, all they seemed to do was complicate matters and tonight it seemed, would be no exception.

For a few seconds they stared at one another, sizing each other up. He saw a woman in black body armor with short tousled hair that, along with the black streaks of camouflage, partially covered her face. Her stance was battle ready and she stood only a few steps away from the bomb behind her. _Protecting it? _

She saw a man several years younger than herself in a dark blue and black costume she didn't recognize. She felt his suspicion and his determination. He would take her down if he could and she couldn't afford to waste the time fighting him. Any moment now the gangsters would get tired of stumbling around in the dark and they would search for a means to light the area. She had to get to the electrical room before anyone else. A fight would be noisy and would attract attention. She didn't know how good this young mask was, but she didn't want to have to battle him and the more than a dozen armed thugs that would come running at the sound of a fight in the darkness. She decided to try and reason with him. Quietly she whispered, "I don't know who you are or why you're here, but you need to walk away, right now." She was honest enough with herself to admit that diplomacy probably wasn't her strongest attribute.

Nightwing was mildly surprised at the audacity as he whispered back, "I need to… Who are you? What are you doing here, did you set these charges?" Batman said the three he fought never said a word. Looks could be deceiving but he couldn't afford to be duped by a pretty if concealed face.

She ignored his first questions. "No I didn't but there are several of these devices all over the warehouse, I think they are wired into the electrical circuits, I need to get to the electrical room in the office and disconnect them." She doubted this tactic was going to work, his suspicion spiked…

"Or detonate them, who are you working for?"

Inwardly she sighed, talking never seemed to work for her. "I don't work for anyone and we are wasting time, the devices could trigger at any moment!" Shay heard a door open and close, someone had entered the office and she was too far away yet to stop them. She had no time now to waste on this mask…

Nightwing heard the door too and when he glanced in that direction the distraction cost him as she suddenly kicked out and connected solidly in the middle of the stylized bird symbol on his chest and sent him flying into the rack behind him. The noise echoed in the quiet dark but she couldn't stop to worry about the repercussions now. Shouts from the front of the warehouse echoed too and voices were coming closer but she was already moving. She had almost reached the side door to the office when the lights came on and a split second later multiple explosions rocked the building.

* * *

_To be continued..._


	4. Chapter 4

**Goddess: Descention**

_**Book Three: Hunters**_

_**Part Three: Masks**_

* * *

**We Wear The Mask**

**_We wear the mask that grins and lies,_**

**_It hides our cheeks and shades our eyes,-_**

**_This debt we pay to human guile;_**

**_With torn and bleeding hearts we smile,_**

**_And mouth with myriad subtleties._**

_Paul Laurence Dunbar_

_(1872-1906)_

* * *

_New York City_

_Brooklyn_

Nightwing landed on the bottom shelf of a tall rack and felt more than saw it shudder with the detonations. Whomever she was her sudden attack had propelled him clear of the nearest bomb but he felt the heat wave and the shock. He looked around and saw the lights were off again but emergency lighting must have automatically cycled on. The warehouse was dimly lit by an orange glow that emitted from small sporadic lights in the corners of the building and by the fires the devices started. Several smoky blazes burned around the area and he could see several men on the floor coughing and moaning. There was no sign of the mysterious woman.

* * *

When the device that was planted just outside the door of the office went off the blast sent Shay tumbling into the room. She hit the door frame as she was thrown by the shockwave and felt something crack with the impact. She rolled into the room and lay stunned on the carpeted floor. The thug that had inadvertently triggered the explosions ran back into the office. He was a large beefy man in a tight-fitting three-piece suit that marked him as a member of one of the 'families'. When he re-entered the room his shock turned to surprise as the dim emergency lights flickered on and he saw Shay on the floor. A fire raged just outside the door that led to the warehouse but that didn't interest him as much as the seemingly unconscious woman. His gun, already drawn when the sound of the multiple blasts roared through the building, was now aimed at Shay's still form.

* * *

As Nightwing got his feet back under him he considered the bombs. There were a dozen fires burning all over the building yet there was surprisingly little structural damage. In his experience bombs were meant to destroy as much as possible, and the placement of these devices should have blown the roof of the building off, but they didn't. _Why? _

Nightwing had lost track of the woman but he could see the men up front, some on the ground unmoving. Gangsters or not they were still human, he had to get them out of here before the fires spread. He took three steps forward before the sprinkler system kicked in. Reaction caused him to look up as the water rained down on him and reaction also caused him to immediately close his mouth when he tasted the water. There was no metallic taste as there should be when water is pumped through unused pipes, it tasted organic, like… almonds. Some poisons, like cyanide, were said to taste like that and Nightwing instantly ducked under one of the shelves of the rack next to him. He looked over toward the men up front; they were making their way to the exit. Some who had been too close to the devices and thrown clear were rousing and they didn't seem to be adversely affected if it was poison in the sprinkler system. Nightwing took a sample of the water and wondered… _Could it be poison, a slow acting variety? Some kind of contagion?_ A number of heinous possibilities raced through his mind. Whatever the game was here that woman must know what's really going on. Nightwing headed toward the office, he was going to get some answers.

* * *

Two stories high on the ceiling water sprayed down on hero and villain alike. Inside the office the lower ceiling was equipped with the sprinkler system as well. As the gunman approached a seemingly unconscious woman, he paused to look up as the water began to pelt him and Shay used his momentary distraction and attacked; from the floor she entangled his feet in her own and tripped him up. He fell hard and his grip on the gun loosened. Shay wrenched the weapon out of his wet hand and a second later she was on him with his own gun pointed at his head. "Tell me everything you know about Niveus Noctis."

He was surprised at the question but he answered, "I dunno much, some guy from them met with the boss." Shay pressed the gun against his temple.

"And?"

"He said he had a way to make ecstasy, acid and other chems real cheap." He tried to struggle but Shay dug her knee into his abdomen.

"That what this meet was about?"

"No, we was here to talk prices, the guy said his boss didn't want no one under-selling no one else, cause bad feelings, ya know."

"What guy, who is his boss?" He clamped his mouth shut and Shay put the barrel of his gun between his eyes so that all he could see was the gun and her wet slippery finger as it tightened on the trigger.

"Okay, okay, said his name was Horace, said his boss would be here too."

"Did he mention his boss' name?"

"If he did I didn't hear it. What the hell happened? You start the fires?" She ignored his question, she was finally getting somewhere.

"You ever see Horace's boss?"

"Ya, once. They was high class. Drove up in a limo, all kinds of protection they had, all in black, they looked like ninjas from those chink movies"

"They?" Finally, some verification.

"Ya."

"What did they look like?"

"They all was some weird-ass shit, looked like vampires but the chick, she was the weirdest."

"Tell me!" Shay was growing impatient, she could sense the men in the warehouse rousing, they were going to leave and the door to the outside was in here with her, but she couldn't stop her interrogation now, she was too close to some real answers.

"Real pale ya know, the both of them but you could tell she was Asian. She had blue hair, dark blue and white underneath. They never said nuthin' to no one 'cept the boss. Looked down on us like we was bugs ya know."

"How long ago did you see them? Do you know where they are?"

"I dunno, a few days ago, I don't know, prob…" Just then the door opened and four armed, angry and soaking wet men entered the room. Their guns were drawn and as soon as they saw Shay they opened fire but she was already moving. She leapt off the man she was interrogating and dove for the door as bullets whizzed around her but the exit was still too far away. Shay rolled under the strafing fire and from the ground fired the weapon she had taken. Shay didn't like guns but she knew how to use them, she'd had extensive training. She aimed low, hitting legs and knees, she couldn't afford to kill, not now and not them. Their shots abated as three of them were on the ground and one dove for cover behind the reception desk. Shay knew there were more than a dozen still out in the warehouse and she had to get out of this room before they joined the fight.

* * *

Upon hearing gunshots Nightwing bolted for the office. In the dim amber glow of the flames near the open door Nightwing could see the woman, gun in hand, firing at someone he couldn't see further back in the room. He wanted to avoid the poison rain that still fell but he couldn't let them kill each other. Head down, he ran toward the gunfight.

* * *

Shay knew she was running out of bullets, she could tell by the weight of the pistol she held that she had only so many shots left, but she was almost at the exit. The gunmen that had rushed in were all crowded near the door, but it wouldn't be long before one or more figured out that there was more than one door to this room and she would have them coming around behind her. Still moving she backed away and fired another shot at the approaching legs and with her other hand fired several small triangular shuriken at the men's weapon hands. Two guns fell to the floor, their owners howled in rage and pain as little blades impaled wrist and hand. Shay darted through the burning exit and slammed the door shut behind her. She had a second to catch her breath and felt a tightness in her side that she knew would turn into pain later, if there was a later; she wasn't out of this yet. Shay pulled out a phone, dialled and hid it on the floor in a dark corner. Intent on disappearing into the warehouse Shay was about to leave but felt anger from someone behind her, when she turned she came face to face with the mask she had met earlier.

Nightwing grabbed her by the shoulders and yelled, "What did you put into the water!?" Shay was taken aback by the randomness of the question. The surprise that showed on her face must have seemed quite genuine because the confidence in his accusation wavered.

Her reaction was genuine, "What are you taking about?" but there was a more immediate threat, "We have to get out of here, they'll be coming through that door and they won't care who they shoot!"

They did come, but not through the door, several men came at them around the outside corner of the enclosed office and began firing. Shay felt them before she saw them coming up behind the young mask and pushed him aside. Her momentary heroics cost her dearly as Shay felt a bullet puncture her left shoulder. Shay spun with the impact but didn't fall, instead she stumbled backward into the smoldering remains of one of the devices that started this chaos. She heard a hiss as the hot metal seared into her damp armor and she pushed herself away. Dimly she saw the door she had just closed open again and several more men pushed through. _More guns_, she thought as she looked down at the one still in her hand, _I hate guns_.

Whoever this mystery woman was, she just saved his life and the least Nightwing could do was return the favor. He threw two smoke pellets at the two clusters of gunmen. Under the billowing cover he pulled out his grapple and fired it up at the ceiling, when he felt it take hold he grabbed the woman around the waist and they both propelled upwards. Nightwing landed them on the top most shelf of one of the racks several rows away from the gunmen as they futilely fired their weapons into the billowing mist. When he let go of the mysterious woman she fought to stay standing but soon sank to her knees. The sprinklers above them lessened to a drizzle then finally stopped. The gunmen below shouted and argued in the increasing darkness as the fires dwindled and went out.

Nightwing knelt down beside the woman not knowing what to say. She was an enigma, he wasn't sure of anything about her. Maybe she was trying to stop the bombs before they detonated or maybe she detonated them and if she did knowing that the fires would trigger the sprinkler system and that there was something in the water why was she still here? Whatever it was in the water, she is surely affected now too, so was he for that matter. He studied her closely, marked her armor, the tiny shuriken that peaked out from a pocket on her thigh; she's had training and she was fast. He certainly didn't see that kick coming and it dawned on him that it had knocked him clear of the device and it's imminent explosion. He had a gut feeling that she didn't have to be an enemy but he was also more than conscious of the gun she still held in her hand. Her right hand, her left hung at her side, it's strength sapped by the wound in her shoulder and the blood loss. Why did she take that bullet for him? She could have easily used him as a human shield instead of pushing him out of the way of the gunfire. Still at a loss for words but he felt he had to say something to fill the silence, finally he simply said, "Thank-you."

Shay looked up, soot and water had smeared the carefully placed camouflage paint on her face but her eyes revealed her pain and fatigue. "No need, we're even now." She rose slowly, painfully.

"You need medical attention, let me help…" Shay turned on him, her left arm still hung limply but her right hand had no problem raising the gun and levelling it at Nightwing as she backed away.

"You've done enough and I thank-you, but, like I said before, you need to leave."

"Now you're going to shoot me? I didn't have to save you…"

Shay looked at him intently, holding his eyes with her own and Nightwing had a disquieting feeling that she was seeing more than just his face, then her expression softened somewhat and she smiled, "Yes you did, it's your nature."

"Then why did you save me? Isn't that your nature?"

"That's complicated, let's just say that your dying at that particular moment would have been… inconvenient."

"Inconvenient?!"

"Yes."

"Just tell me what you were doing here. Do you work for Niveus…"

"Noctis? No I don't. As I said, I don't work for anyone."

"Who are you? You owe me that much."

She smiled again but weakly, whoever this young man was, he was tenacious. "I don't owe you anything, we're even remember. Look, the police will be here shortly…"

"The police? Who…?"

Shay was beginning to lose her patience… _Will this guy ever stop talking? _"I called them, soon the men below will be too busy dealing with the authorities to worry about us. Now, I have to go and you won't be following me."

"How are you going to stop me, shoot me?"

Shay smiled again but sadly, "As a matter of fact..." Then she shot Nightwing, twice, just to make sure.

* * *

_To be continued..._


	5. Chapter 5

**Goddess: Descention**

_**Book Three: Hunters**_

_**Part Four: Communion**_

* * *

**Full Moon**

**_There I walked, and there I raged; _**

**_The spiritual savage caged _**

**_Within my skeleton, raged afresh _**

**_To feel, behind a carnal mesh, _**

**_The clean bones crying in the flesh._**

_Elinor Wylie _

_(1885-1928)_

* * *

_Communion_

_Beyond the Christian denotation, communion transpires whenever man converges with what he considers a higher power. Be it truly divine, demonic or delusion, it makes no difference in the mind of the believer. Faith sees us through our lives and comforts us in death. All our fears will be banished, all our struggles proven worthy, and our devotion will be rewarded when we converge finally with our destiny, with that higher power, that shining supreme divinity._

_The unanswerable can be answered with faith: Are we the result of the randomness of the universe? Is the human race an epic accident or is the notion of destiny and fate a real force that guides mankind in a particular direction? Faith tells us: Yes, we have a destiny. Yes, we are guided by a force more powerful than ourselves. Yes, we have a purpose, a reason for being._

_But faith colors our perceptions of the world around us; we either try to see the good in all people, or we look with suspicion at our neighbors. At what point is faith carried too far, when does it lose it's grand vision? When do beliefs cloud judgement and lead us not into temptation, but to blindly follow what our faith decrees? When does faith become less philosophy and enter the realm of fanaticism? When those that do not share our beliefs are looked down upon and avoided, or pitied and when conversion is attempted and resisted they become hated. What part does that play in destiny?_

_Throughout the ages wars have been fought over the disparity of mans notions of faith. Holy wars, fought on blood soaked fields, where entire civilizations with unique cultures and languages have been wiped out all in the name of faith…_

_Justifiable genocide? We believe and we are right, all other concepts are heretical and wrong and those that believe them should be destroyed so that their twisted notions of faith cannot survive. They will not be guided to the next life, they have no soul and thus they are already dead, their lives are meaningless and thus forfeit. They will never be granted salvation and they will never know the ecstasy of communion…_

_Faith or fantasy, it does not matter in the mind of the believer._

_Excerpt from -_ Shattered Psyches:

An Inclusive Study of Faith, Delusion and Unrepressed Psychosis.

By Dr. Howard F. Maitland PhD.

Arkham Psychiatric Asylum

Gotham City

* * *

_The New City_

Oh the freedom! At last he could continue his mission. The wait had been excruciatingly long but now, finally, it was the perfect time and everything was in place. The moon was full of radiance and it shined down upon him, it shone only on him. He felt it's power infuse him, it made him shine in the darkness of his soul. He had never felt so close to her, he gloried in her power, the power he would someday claim. Someday soon.

A quiet muffled whimper pulled his attention from the bright orb that hovered just above him. He turned and smiled. The woman lay bound and gagged in the center of a small clearing surrounded by dark silent trees. Yes, this place was perfect for the work he needed to do. He'd waited so long, but tonight, tonight would begin the continuation of a mission he had almost given up on. The circumstances were never right, there was always obstacles, complications, distractions, and there was always Him. But not here, He was not in this city, this new city.

He liked it here, he felt free, here he could hunt without fear. In Gotham City it was different, the dalliances there, the games he played with the Bat honed his skill, made him worthy and once he finished his work here he would be ready to return, he would have the power to destroy Him and with the Bat's radiant darkness he would be unstoppable.

It whimpered again and struggled against the ropes that bound it and he smiled again. _No, He is not here but I am__…_He looked up again at the glorious moon, he closed his eyes, breathed deeply and opened his arms in exultation, _and she is here, I can feel her, so powerful, so vulnerable__… _Still smiling he turned to the woman on the ground. This night was special but he couldn't understand why he felt so. He studied the one struggling in the dirt at his feet. It wasn't any different than the last one, was it? It was so long ago, he couldn't remember it's face, but that didn't matter, he remembered the radiance and he remembered the ritual but this time he would evoke true power. He looked down at his arm, at the marks he himself have carved there, symbols of those he had liberated. Symbols, it was what he had been missing before, he understood that now... yes now he knew what he'd been missing before. He gazed down at it's writhing form, "_Symbols..."_

Her struggles became more frenzied as she stared up at him in wide-eyed terror, he was coming closer and there was a knife in his hand and that predatory look in his eyes_…_Susan thought of her family, her sister and niece, she thought of all the things she didn't do yet, all the things she didn't say to the people she loved. _Oh please God, _she cried silently, _please_ _don__'__t let me die!_

He saw the fear in its eyes and the silent plea to spare it's pathetic life. But it wasn't a life, it was a lie. All he saw was a vessel, a shell. Inside though, inside was the radiance, and he would set it free, just as he was free. He looked down at the squirming woman at his feet. _Only in death do they finally understand the gift that I bestow upon them__…_He knelt down beside her and tenderly wiped away a tear, then he whispered, _"__You will be part of something glorious tonight, Susan, we both will and then you will be set free.__"_ He watched the hope in her eyes emerge from despair then he smiled broadly when it turned into horror as he raised the knife. _We will both be free tonight, and under the magnificent moon we will both shine, for her__…_

And then it was time for... communion.

* * *

_Gotham City_

Batman had just returned to the cave after his meeting with Squirrel. It had been a busy few days for the Batman. He had finally tracked down and stopped one of the several escaped inmates, the pyromaniac, Charcoal from razing Arkham Asylum but he didn't get away unscathed. He had two broken ribs and had some first degree burns from the explosion in the gas-line distribution station. Alfred had picked him up outside the tunnel that Squirrel led him to with the new helicopter. The suit he was wearing was a charred ruin, and the cape had almost completely melted away. Yes, it had been a rough couple of days.

Bruce Wayne was exhausted; he had been going for over forty-eight hours without rest. But no sooner had Alfred bandaged him up he donned another suit and went to meet with the teenager in spite of his butler's fervent objections. Squirrel had information about the escapes that could prove vital but more than that, Squirrel was on the 'list' now and would be watched and Batman had to make sure he didn't fall through the cracks in the Broken City.

The boys information was valuable. He had been on the east side of the island on the night of the escapes and he witnessed a boat pick up several inmates just before the riot and prison alarms sounded. The boat was long, slender and quiet, 'high-tech' was how Squirrel had described it but he could not give a very decisive description of the people on the boat other than the four inmates he saw in their Arkham-orange jumpsuits. The teenager said all he could see of the others were dark shadowy forms, he guessed there were maybe three or four of them. The information was vague but his description of the boat could lead somewhere and the fact that Crane had outside help, the kind with 'high-tech' toys was very interesting as was his disappearance. _Was Crane extracted from Arkham for a particular purpose by these people?_

Batman was about to input the boat's description into the computer when an alert sounded… The computer had a continuous program running that would alert him if any key-words or phrases were used on the city's emergency frequencies. Since the escapes Batman had added several more that may indicate activity by the escapees but particularly the MO's of Jonathon Crane and Victor Zsasz.

He listened to the 911 call and before the tearful woman had explained her circumstances Batman was in the Batmobile and driving away, much to Alfred's dismay.

The call came in only minutes ago, with any luck Batman would get there before the police. A woman reported finding her brother and a friend dead in an apartment they shared. She cried her story into the phone to the emergency operator and as he drove Batman listened intently to the recording: She thought they were okay, she only glanced at them when she had come home from a weekend spent out of town. She didn't know they were dead at first until she saw the blood... The emergency operator told her to leave the premises until the police arrived, which was good. Batman wanted the crime-scene all to himself.

The building was a small squat structure. Not quite an apartment, it housed only four separate suites in an ordinary middle-class neighborhood in Gotham City. But not so ordinary; it was one of the few places in the city where crime only rarely invaded. It was a place where the neighbors actually knew each other. They had barbeques and swap-meets and organized neighborhood sporting leagues for their children. A corner of paradise trapped in the eye of the hurricane, but the hurricane found a way in…

Batman had traced the call to one of the basement suites of the small apartment but lights shone through the windows of the entire building. Apparently the young woman had alerted a neighbor and like a shaken hornet's nest the entire neighborhood was aroused and milling about, speaking in hushed voices. A few brave souls were out walking the streets and alleys in the area; protecting their own; but if the killer was still around all they would do was provide him with more victims. Behind the building Batman caught one such brave soul with a baseball bat and told the startled man to return to his home, it wasn't safe.

The entrance to the basement apartment was around the side of the small building hidden from the street by a tall fence and overgrown bushes. Batman tried the door first and found it unlocked, he opened it and stepped inside.

He scanned the entire scene with a highly sensitive infrared scanner that could detect even the smallest traces of blood. Batman inspected all the rooms in the small apartment as a whole and when he returned to the small living-room, where it happened, he had a good understanding of the sequence of the terrible events that took place there.

There was no sign of forced entry. The killer gained access through the front door which was hidden from the street so it was unlikely anyone would have seen the killer enter. There was a pool of blood on an entrance mat on the floor inside the door, one of the boys, the one who answered the door, died there. There was evidence of blood spatter on the walls that had been cleaned off and it indicated there was a brief struggle. The young man backed away then collapsed bleeding out and leaving a larger pool of blood on the floor near the wall. The other young man was on the sofa, and jumped up after the first was attacked. He backed away, knocking the coffee-table askew but he didn't get far. The killer cornered the young man near the television. The second victim put up more of a fight; pictures on the shelf next to the T.V. had been knocked over and the area was spattered with blood and again with an attempted clean up. After they died, both of the young men were posed; sitting on the sofa, made to look like they were playing a video game. Both bodies were in full rigor mortis, but putrefaction had not yet begun; the victims died more than twelve but less than twenty-four hours ago, probably early last night.

Batman swept the room again looking for anything he might have missed, he knew the police would be here soon and he didn't have much time. The two young men both lived here but there was a definite woman's touch to the décor: Matching dish towels in the kitchen, plants that were flourishing, and pictures that prominently displayed the three residents.

The killer could be Victor Zsasz; the murder weapon was a sharp double bladed knife, Zsasz's weapon of choice, but the wounds seemed sloppy, or hurried, not Zsasz's style; he was more precise, almost surgical, he's had the practice. The bodies were posed, a defining Zsasz characteristic, but the game controllers were reversed; not an obvious mistake perhaps, but one Zsasz would not make. The room was cleaned up; pictures were righted and furniture was moved back into position but Batman could see the wipe marks under the re-hung pictures and see evidence of moved furniture. Zsasz spends time cleaning up afterward, it was all part of the fantasy; the illusion of normalcy disguising the horrid truth, but there was a hastiness to it, as if he was interrupted.

Batman glanced at a blood speckled picture of the three roommates, smiling and goofing around in front of the camera, with no clue of what was to come. Two lives destroyed and one irreparably damaged. He could feel for the young woman as he too avoided death on the whim of a murderer. Survivor guilt is what the psychiatrists told him when he was a boy. It didn't come anywhere near to what he had really felt, still feels. The term implies a certain amount of compliance, that he should thank the killer for sparing him. And it didn't allay the self-reproach he felt, it only gave it a name. He hoped the young woman didn't feel the same guilt that had plagued him all these years, and that thought led him to wonder…

Why was she spared? Zsasz would have waited for the woman to come home, or he would have struck before she left. Zsasz spends a good deal of time casing his victims, he would have known that three people lived here. Besides the obvious something was seriously wrong about this. Batman searched his memory of his past investigations of Zsasz trying to find some connection there with this crime. Was he interrupted? Will he come back for the woman? If so why? Was there something special about her or was she merely lucky enough not to be home last night. Zsasz was too random a killer to start a pattern now. Unlike other serial killers no one was exempt from Zsasz's attention. He didn't adhere to any particular victim profile, it made him harder to catch and Zsasz knew it.

Batman looked around the room again, at the discrepancies, the sloppiness. Zsasz was usually more thorough, he always arranged to have enough time with his victims so he could toy with them, to draw out his ritual as long as he could and he had become a master at it. He wanted to see their own impending doom in their eyes when they looked up at him and relinquished their fate to him. He needed them to see him take ultimate control over them. He wanted to make them beg for a life he saw as futile because to Zsasz they were already dead… He looked at the two boys staring sightless at the too bright television, innocent, much too young to be cut down like this. All the promise of their young lives gone because they were unlucky enough to have caught the eye of a madman with a knife and a twisted purpose.

Noise from outside interrupted his grim train of thought and he looked down and saw that the glass over the picture he still held had cracked in the clenched grip of his gauntleted hands. He realized he had momentarily lost his objectivity and let the horror of the scene in and that would not do. He carefully replaced the picture and turned to leave. Through the window Batman could see more people gathering in the street now and he could hear sirens coming closer.

Batman left the way the killer did, out the back door and into the alley. Along the way he found a blood stain and a partial bloody foot print on the sidewalk that led to the alley. He stopped and recorded the image and followed the trail until it faded at the opening of the street. Across the road and a block away from the building, now with several police cruisers parked in front, was a small park. There was a school at the far end out in the open but this side of the field was tree-lined and sported picnic tables behind the bleachers that surrounded a baseball diamond. Batman darted unseen behind the cover of the trees and circled back toward the small apartment building.

It was darker in the park, behind the trees, the streetlights barely penetrated the foliage but the almost full moon was high in the sky and it illuminated the area well enough for Batman to see. The trees were large old oaks, easily climbable and offered an excellent vantage point from which to observe the building across the street. This is where he watched them live, he thought, and this is where he planned their deaths.

As he scanned the area Batman continued to wonder why the killer spared the young woman and why didn't he attack late at night when all three of them were there and vulnerable. There was no real security system in the building. It had only four apartments each with their own entrances. Breaking into the place would have been a simple thing for Zsasz, he's done it many times before, but he gained entrance by knocking on the door. Why? As he speculated Batman watched the police cordon off the area, backing the growing number of onlookers behind police tape. The forensics van arrived and soon the police would canvass the neighborhood and inspect the park.

Before he left Batman noticed something on a nearby picnic table. Two lines freshly carved into the wood, parallel and diagonal, like hatch-marks, or if one were to carve another diagonal line joining the two at opposite ends it would make a 'Z'. Two lines, two victims. It was unlike Zsasz to make such a mark on anything but himself, and it seemed unfinished somehow, but he couldn't define why it should seem so. He wondered again about the woman, was she spared or would he come back for her? Unless she had something to do with it; he would look into her life for possible motives, her alibi and contacts. It was unlikely but he had to cover all avenues. Zsasz's escape wasn't exactly a secret, the media jumped on the story. The GCPD and Arkham security couldn't restrict the information, there were too many leaks, the press found out and ran with it. The whole city knows about Zsasz now, his escape and his MO. After almost a week without a hint or any traces of either Zsasz or Crane however, the fervour died down, but Batman knew by tomorrow morning it would be back in full swing.

Batman made his way back to the Batmobile parked on the other side of the small tree-lined park near the school, and mulled over the inconsistencies he had found at the crime-scene. Something could have happened to Zsasz that could have caused all the discrepancies Batman had noticed. An interruption, an injury or distraction, even an intentional altering of his MO. Zsasz was difficult enough to track, if he changed his modus operandi it would be that much harder to find him before he killed again.

Could this be a copy-cat? They were usually easier to track down, they were as a rule new to the game, they made mistakes and they used their own interpretation of the fantasy of those they imitated which caused incongruities. They lacked the imagination, or the insight to come up with their own technique, or they modelled their crimes on another hoping the original killer is caught first and punished for the copy-cat's offences. But if this was a copy-cat's doing then where was Zsasz? Was there one serial killer loose in his city, or was there two? With that grim thought weighing on his mind, Batman walked to his vehicle. Either way people were dying and Batman took it upon himself to stop him, or them. Another burden he would carry down the endless road he had chosen.

* * *

_To be continued..._


	6. Chapter 6

**Goddess: Descention**

_**Book Three: Hunters**_

_**Part Five: Extraction**_

* * *

** Resume**

**_Razors pain you;_**

**_Rivers are damp;_**

**_Acids stain you;_**

**_And drugs cause cramp._**

**_Guns aren't lawful;_**

**_Nooses give;_**

**_Gas smells awful;_**

**_You might as well live._**

_Dorothy Parker_

_(1893-1967)_

* * *

_New Youk City_

_Brooklyn_

Nightwing grimaced with pain, anger and a seriously bruised ego. _She shot me! I can__'__t believe she shot me! Twice! _He lay there cursing her after pulling himself to the edge of the tall rack. She had dropped the empty gun at his feet then used a device not unlike his own grapple gun to repel down to the floor and disappear into the darkness. From behind him he saw the tell-tale red and blue flashing lights of the police cruisers strobe through the warehouse's high windows and he heard the moans and curses of the gunmen below. And just as she said, they abandoned their search for them and turned to face a more significant threat; the police.

Dick could barely stand, and he knew getting out of this warehouse undetected would be next to impossible. He hated it but he knew he had to call for help. He had no allies within NYPD, the police force of this city took a dim view of masked vigilantes. Nightwing would probably be arrested, unmasked and humiliated if they captured him. He had to get out of here and he couldn't do it alone. With gunshot wounds in both legs, he was in no condition to escape the authorities and he cursed the mysterious woman again for making him call for help, but call he did; Nightwing opened a channel on his com-link… "Oracle?"

In an instant Barbara's calm voice was there and inwardly Dick smiled, she was always there. _"__Nightwing. What__'__s up?__"_

But his inward smile disappeared when he said, "I need an extraction."

"_This an emergency?__"_

"Sort of…"

"_I can__'__t authorize the use of the teleporter on a __'__sort of__'__.__"_

The teleporter was an amazing and highly top-secret device of alien technology, but it was unstable. One use would require it to be powered down anywhere from a few hours to a few days because it needed so much energy to function. It was only used by the JLA, and only in the most direst of circumstances and at the sole discretion of Oracle and Oracle alone.

Oracle was the heart of Watchtower and Watchtower was a life line for Nightwing and people like him. Masked heroes that fought their battles under the radar; waging wars that the authorities could not hope to understand and were too ill-equipped to fight. At her fingertips Oracle could perform miracles. In command of a vast array of information and advanced technology, not all of it terrestrial, she could retrieve and distribute information, coordinate the multitude of masked vigilantes around the globe or help a single one out of a perilous predicament.

Dick could understand her refusal to employ the teleporter and agreed with her. He wouldn't be able to live with himself if he used it and rendered it unavailable if a _real _life or death situation occurred. He was shot and bleeding, but his wounds were superficial, that woman made sure of it. He frowned at the thought of her. _We__'__re not even now, oh no, not by a long shot,_ he thought as his eye caught a drop of blood across from him where the woman briefly sat. He pulled out a swab and took a sample, _no, we__'__re not even, not yet._

"_Dick? Are you in trouble?__"_

"Um… ya a little bit, I'm wounded and trapped in a warehouse in Brooklyn."

"_Hold on, getting your vitals and your location__…__. How bad is it?__"_

"Not too bad, just… incapacitating. I'll be alright, I just need to get out of here."

"_Okay, got a satellite link, I see the building you__'__re in, you__'__re pretty much surrounded. The police don__'__t like us in the Big Apple do they?_

… _Can you get to the roof?__"_

Nightwing looked up and saw air ducts above him, he should be able to reach far enough, if he could stand. "I think so."

"_Okay, get to the roof and I__'__ll have a chopper there ASAP.__"_

Dick winced with more than the act of getting to his feet. If it was Him that had to come to his rescue… "Whose chopper?"

"_Dick, you__'__re in trouble, does it matter?__"_

"Actually yes." Over the com-link he could hear her sigh.

"_I really don__'__t understand you two__…"_

"It's a 'guy thing'."

" _A __'__guy thing__'__; standard response when you __'__guys__'__ act like children. You__'__re off the hook for now, Alfred is on his way, he__'__s seems to have fallen in love with the new chopper and Batman is unavailable at the moment. Just get to the roof and hold tight, we__'__ll get you home.__" _

Dick breathed a sigh of relief as he pried a panel off the duct and strained to keep his balance on his throbbing legs. But he knew Bruce would learn all the sordid details of this misadventure in time. This reprieve would not last.

* * *

_Brooklyn_

Shay left the warehouse through an emergency exit at the rear of the building. Red and blue flashing lights lit up the night as the police pulled into the parking lot at the building's front. Shay had to hurry, soon they'll be circling the warehouse, covering all the exits. She raced toward a section of fence that was leaning close to the ground and quickly climbed over it. On the other side she skirted the marshy terrain until she was far from the building. She was getting tired, the gunshot wound and the resultant loss of blood was draining. Shay was gasping by the time she reached the shed where her bike was hidden two blocks away and she took a moment to rest.

The omen was right, as soon as she saw her reflection and couldn't recognize her own face she should have known it would all go to hell. She shouldn't have gotten involved. As soon as she realized her target wasn't going to show she should have left. As soon as she saw the bombs she should have left. As soon as that mask showed up she should have left. Tonight was a fiasco. That damn omen has never been wrong.

The adrenalin was wearing off and her shoulder began to throb. She leaned on her bike and inspected her wound. It was a high caliber round, it had to be to get through her armor and the bullet punctured her just under the collar bone. She couldn't see much of it in the darkened shed but she could feel the blood oozing from the hole in her shoulder. She dug into the packs draped over her motorcycle's frame and pulled out a T-shirt and tore it into strips for a bandage, but the wound was difficult to treat one-handed. Her entire body ached in protest when she tried to twist around. Finally she clumsily wrapped the strips of cloth over her shoulder and rigged a darker shirt over top. Her left arm hug limply but she couldn't sling it, she needed it to drive. Shay hoped she had enough strength to find somewhere safe, she couldn't stay here, she was bleeding, a lot, and she had probably left a trail.

But where was she going to go? That mask was right, she did need medical attention. She had lost a lot of blood, and this wound was serious, she knew that because she was finding it harder and harder to breathe and that wasn't just from fatigue. She couldn't go to a hospital, of that she was adamant. They would anesthetise her, there would undoubtedly be surgery, then the questions would come; Who was she? Where did she come from? And her favorite: Whom do you work for? Government agencies would follow, then the brain scans and the drugs, just like before, and the worst part, the worst part… Shay shook herself. The pain stung her back to herself. She was losing it and she had to admit; she needed help.

Shay pulled out a phone, not the cheap untraceable pre-paid she used to call the police then left in the warehouse, this phone was distinctive; rigged with a device that bounced the phone's signal to cell towers across the city and encrypted it's code rendering it unreadable. She paid a small fortune for the device, but it was worth every penny. She dialled a number but hesitated before she hit the 'send' button. She swore she wouldn't do this, she wouldn't involve them again but it was either call for help or find a nice quiet place to curl up and die.

Shay unconsciously rubbed her wrist and the scar that lay beneath her armor and wondered if dying would be such a terrible thing. She knew enough about death to believe there was something beyond this world, she didn't know what it was, only that it was there because her mind had touched it, many times. She looked down at her hands, at the jagged scars that she knew were there under her armor and thought, some of those times were more poignant than others.

Shay could feel the scars tingle as she remembered a time when she had truly given up. She had just lost everything. She was alone and wandering a city she despised; it was a city of fear: Gotham City brutalized her utterly in both mind and body, then it left her for dead but somehow she had survived. She remembered that it began to rain. She had dragged herself near a darkened doorway. There was a broken window, she remembered it breaking during the fight; a fight she lost. A sharp piece of glass materialized under her hand and she picked it up and studied it for a very long time. She remembered thinking about glass and water and blood and how things seemed to have come full circle, that it was alright to die there in the rain. Then she made the cuts that would become the scars she would carry for the rest of her life. She remembered watching her blood mixing with the rain as it drained away into the gutter and she remembered how peaceful she felt. Then all she wanted to do was sleep and forget. As a tranquil weariness overcame her the only sound she heard was the rain and the beat of her heart.

_Thrump Thrump Thrump_

An odd sound roused her, it kept time with the throbbing of her shoulder and the labored beat of her heart and she realized she had almost passed out. She shook herself awake and tried to concentrate. The sound was strange, like a helicopter; muted but powerful, she could feel her bike under her pulsate with it and her shoulder throbbed with it. She peeked out the doorway of the shed and looked up. Overhead she expected to see a police helicopter but it didn't look like any police helicopter she had ever seen. It was completely black and it looked as if it had some kind of propulsion system where the tail rotor should have been. It was flying low, probably avoiding radar and was close enough for her to scan it's occupants. Usually if she scanned someone deep enough she could recognize them again and she wasn't completely certain but she felt that both of the occupants of the high-tech chopper were familiar and she was certain that one of them was the mask she had met earlier but it bothered her that she recognized the high-tech chopper's other occupant. She didn't know who it was, only that she had scanned him at some point in the past, like an echo of a voice from far away, familiar but indistinct. Whoever he was he had some nice toys, it seemed the young vigilante had some powerful friends. She felt a momentary pang of guilt for shooting him, but she couldn't have let him follow her. She was relieved the young mask found a way out of the warehouse, that he had friends he could call. She did too.

Shay looked down at the phone in her hand and felt the scars tingle again. She had promised she would not give up again and she wouldn't, she had work to do and she would finish it; she was too close to give up now. Shay pushed the 'send' button.

* * *

_Staten Island_

Nick Kuzowski was middle-aged, slightly overweight and balding, and he was also a genius, sort of. Nick was a mechanic, an inventor and a tinkerer and that was what his genius encompassed, otherwise he was quite ordinary. He owned a small automotive repair shop on a rather large piece of land on Staten Island. Strewn about on that land behind his shop was what most would call a junk yard, but it wasn't junk to Nick; it was resources waiting to be tapped. His shop did a meagre business, enough for him to stay afloat and employ an apprentice and a receptionist/parts girl. Meagre is what he aimed for, what he claimed to the IRS, but his real income came from his association with The Liaison.

He had never met The Liaison, he didn't know what it really was; man or woman, one person or many, but he knew better than to try and find out. All the transactions between them took place via one-shot use E-mails and post office boxes. What he did for The Liaison was make things: Obscure gadgets of either mechanical or electronic in nature or both. He would receive an E-mail asking whether a particular item could be made and Nick would answer with details on what would be required, how long it would take and the price. Nick loved the challenge, his ingenuity was legendary, at least to The Liaison and a few other associates, otherwise his genius was largely unknown.

In spite of this lucrative arrangement however, Nick was unhappy. He used to have what he considered a partner; an association of mutual respect for their individual talents. Essentially they were mercenaries. She needed him to make and keep the equipment in working order, and he needed the adventure, the sense of doing things that made a difference, for a price of course; one had to make a living. They would receive jobs from The Liaison, the same way Nick still did, but they would be important and Nick was a bigger part of the action.

Well, maybe not action exactly; she always kept Nick away from that part. He wasn't trained like she was; the fighting and the sneaking. She didn't like that word; sneaking, but that's what it was, and she was good at it. She always protected him, kept him on the periphery. She would only call him in if it was safe to do so and his job was mainly extraction if she got hurt, or pick-ups that were too hot or large for her to carry and in those cases she would act the decoy and lead pursuit away while Nick picked up the goods. Their jobs included finding missing people, retrieving stolen or lost items, surveillance, protection and sometimes retribution. That usually meant beating or scaring the crap out of someone who really deserved it, she was good at that too but she never killed anyone. She had made that clear to The Liaison early on, she would never take a contract job that required her or Nick to assassinate anyone, and Nick whole-heartedly agreed and still does. He will not make lethal gadgets of any kind, he will not be party to murder.

She was gone now though, the Liaison said she was probably dead because he, she or it could not find her. Nick could not bring himself to believe that. Her body was never found, no Jane Does where ever brought to any of the city's morgues that matched her description. It didn't mean she wasn't dead, but short of unassailable proof, Nick would not believe it.

He knew that what they did, what she did was dangerous but there were things she could do that were amazing; not just the physical feats which were well beyond Nick's capacity even in his prime, but that other talent she had approached the realm of the supernatural. She knew things she couldn't possibly know and Nick believed it was more than mere intuition. Nick fully believed she could read his mind, she always seemed to know exactly what he was thinking but that was okay because they trusted each other. He would never do anything that would hurt her and Nick didn't need her mental abilities to know that she would never hurt or endanger him. Nick had never met anyone like her and the brief time they worked together was the most fulfilling of Nick's life. But it was over now, she was gone and after two long years Nick should have come to accept it but he couldn't, he wouldn't give up on her, he couldn't give up on hope.

So now he tinkers in his secret workshop, alone. Making gadgets and devices he will never see work in the field. Yes, Nick was unhappy. He would spend his days running his shop and touring his yard with his dog Barak, a rangy old rottweiler. Deep in the yard, hidden by the junk he passes the old trailer almost daily. It's what she used to call home. An old Airstream; it used to be silver and shiny back in the fifties when it was made, now it looked like a big old rusted Twinkie. She liked it that way though, old and rusty and unnoticeable. In two years he'd never gone inside, it was her place and he wouldn't invade it, she wouldn't like that.

He spends his nights in his hidden workshop. His shop was an older structure and it still had lube pits and in one he had made a secret room. Inside were his specialized tools; most he made himself, and a workbench where he did the small stuff, the intricate work. That's where he was when his phone rang. Not the shop phone or his regular cell, it was the special phone he still kept on the off-chance that his former partner wasn't dead like he was told. He kept the phone active and he kept hope alive because she was his friend and he missed her and he just couldn't let her go. Now that phone was ringing and he froze. He just stared at it, he couldn't believe it, then he thought; _It was just one of those randomized calls people get asking if they are happy with their long-distance phone plan. Ya, that__'__s probably all it was._ Still, when he picked up the phone his hand shook, and when he said hello he hoped beyond words that his friend had come back from the dead.

* * *

_To be continued..._


	7. Chapter 7

**Goddess: Descention**

_**Book Three: Hunters**_

_**Part Six: Affliction**_

* * *

** Prospice **

**_I would hate that death bandaged my eyes, and forbore,_**

**_And bade me creep past._**

**_No! let me taste the whole of it, fare like my peers_**

**_The heroes of old,_**

**_Bear the brunt, in a minute pay life__'__s arrears_**

**_Of pain, darkness, and cold._**

_Robert Browning_

_(1812-1889)_

* * *

_New York City_

It had been a long time since she had talked to Nick. En was what she called him, she used no names over the phone, Shay protected Nick's identity as vehemently as she did her own. He was surprised to hear from her, then angry and after she told him her situation he became concerned. She got that from his voice alone, she couldn't sense emotions over the phone, and she didn't need to, his tone spoke volumes. He was still angry and hurt that she left without a word, without a goodbye, but he would still help her. She hadn't realized how much she missed him until she heard his voice again.

He wanted to come to her but she wouldn't have it. She was still too close to that warehouse, and there was the trail of blood she left that could lead the dumbest cop in the city directly to her. No, they would not meet here, instead they agreed to meet on the Brooklyn side of the Verrazano. That way Shay would not have to travel through the toll booths on the bridge; all in black and bleeding; she'd be noticed.

Shay had to lift her left arm to the handle bar of her motorcycle with her good hand, and it hurt. She was worried she wouldn't be able to operate the clutch with the damaged limb, but once it rested on the grip she was confident the hand should function as it should. Shay peeked again out the doorway to make sure the area was clear and saw lights from police vehicles flash between the buildings, ready or not, it was time to go. Shay held her breath when she ignited the bike's engine but her old Indian was quiet. If the cops heard it's low rumbling echo they would not be able to pin-point it's location before Shay made her escape.

Shay and Nick planned to meet at Fort Hamilton Park, a small wooded area near the base of the Verrazano Bridge. Shay planned to skirt the edge of the Dyker Beach golf course on eighty-sixth, where she was confident there would be little to no traffic at this time of night. As she turned on to the street Shay felt optimistic in spite of, or perhaps because of the light-headedness. She was going to see Nick again. She was a loner but that wasn't her choice. She has been alone too long, she missed companionship, she missed talking to someone. Talk not interrogation.

The only conversations she'd had lately involved grilling people for information. Shay had spent the better part of the last two years investigating Niveus Noctis and their leaders Erica Zhong and Devin Spar. That was who Shay was after. Erica may be a leader of this new illicit organization but Shay knew Erica had a master pulling her strings and it wasn't Spar. There was someone else, someone higher up and it was he who Shay was ultimately after. He was master of many puppets. He, among others, was who her family had spent her childhood hiding from and it was he who Shay feared more than anything. But now, like an animal backed into a corner, whipped and tortured all her life; now the animal was ready to attack.

The only problem was, Shay had no idea who he was. She didn't have a name, a description, nothing. All she had to go on was Erica Zhong because she knew who he was, Erica took her orders directly from him. Shay didn't know what role Spar or Niveus Noctis played in his schemes and she didn't really care. Shay just wanted the man who gave the order to destroy her family, the man who threatened everyone she cared about. Shay would find him someday soon, and he would have the honor of being the first and last person that Shay would willingly, even happily kill.

Someday, but not today. Right now she had to focus, but it was getting harder to concentrate. The pain was starting to wear on her and she was exhausted. _Just a little further, just stay focused a little longer. _Shay could feel her heart laboring, she wheezed with every breath and she felt a rising sense of unease. As she approached the northern most tip of the undeveloped land the golf course claimed the unease turned to dread. She unintentionally slowed down as her mind was being drawn away and her body followed. Then a sudden agonized but silent scream blazed through Shay's brain and shattered her carefully constructed mental barrier. She lost control of her vehicle on the mercifully empty road and crossed into the oncoming lanes but directly ahead of her was a low metal guardrail and beyond it was a grassy ravine that gave way to a small copse of trees.

Shay's vision greyed and her mind trembled with the death throes of another. She had felt this before, many times and it was always a horrifying experience. Usually she could feel it coming, usually she had enough time to either leave the area as proximity seemed to be a factor concerning her empathic ability or she would find a safe place to weather the storm, but not this time. This death was too brutal, too agonizing, and Shay was already weakened by her injury and blood loss. As her mental walls fell under the onslaught her body went limp. Her mind struggled against the relentless compulsion to join a tortured victim in death.

Shay's motorcycle hit the guardrail head on and both she and it went flying in different directions. The old Indian landed several yards away from it's rider, it sputtered and coughed, then with a final quiet rattle it lay still. Shay fell on her injured shoulder and rolled down the shallow hill and then she too lay quiet on the grassy slope but her mind was anything but. It fought a battle that everyone must lose only once, Shay's mind fought a battle against death itself.

It was if a dark and terrible vortex that at first beckoned then relentlessly pulled at her with a howling wind. As a child when this happened she would collapse as her mind was overwhelmed but through the years Shay had trained herself not to give in to the terrible compulsion to sever her mind from her body and allow herself to be carried away by that shrieking wind but it was always a battle.

Shay's greyed vision darkened to black as the vortex grew and she felt the victim, the woman die at the hands of a monster. She briefly felt a vile exultation as the monster revelled in it's cruelty and Shay knew she had felt his kind before, and then all Shay knew was his victim.

Shay not only felt her die she felt the agonizing torture the unknown woman had just experienced. So brutal that she could feel the woman welcome the death that was coming. Then the chaos that Shay felt too many times before overwhelmed her as that dark churning maelstrom swallowed the soul it came for. Shay relived the dying woman's entire life from birth to this final moment and their minds, both inexplicably linked, writhed with it.

After the eternity of that moment the storm abated, and the woman faded from Shay's mind as she passed from this life to whatever lay beyond. Shay lay on the grass gasping and blinded. She was always exhausted after such an experience, but there would be no rest for her belaboured brain; she felt a cruel and twisted mind and she sensed it was coming closer.

Shay tried to move but her battered body would not cooperate. She could only lay there so weak that she could barely move her helmeted head. She could feel the blood from her wounded shoulder seep into the grass beneath her and her entire body pulsated with pain. Shay gritted her teeth and strained to move, she had to move, she had to because she felt that diseased mind descend upon her.

It was grotesque, this mind she sensed. It was saturated with a darkness, an evil that had lived inside this being for so long it had lost everything that even resembled humanity. It was dead inside, no empathy, no compassion, it lived for the brutality it inflicted. And felt frighteningly familiar. It approached her and she could feel it's anticipation, it's eagerness to inflict more suffering this night and Shay had all but fallen in it's lap.

Though her vision was still a blur of greys and blacks she could see the shape of it, a black silhouette that eclipsed the grey of the full moon. Man-shaped, but there was nothing human or humane about it. She knew it looked down at her, she could almost picture herself in it's eyes; another helpless victim. Shay tried in vain to move her hand, find a weapon, to do something but all she could do was watch it's shadow as it looked down at her, it's head tilted and Shay heard it whisper a single word… _"Shiny."_

* * *

_Gotham City_

Alfred had brought Master Dick home and had just finished tending the young man's injuries when he heard the unmistakable roar of the Batmobile as it returned to the cave. He left the man that Alfred viewed as a second son to recuperate in the medical bay and went out to greet the one he considered his first. He watched as the Batman exited the vehicle and left it on a huge turntable where automated robotic arms and hydraulic lifts would carry the Batmobile to it's home in the hangar bay with the rest of the exotic, high-tech vehicles.

Alfred could tell by the way the Batman moved that he was in pain and troubled, more so than usual. He was stooped, his walk slow, as if enveloped within the flowing folds of his cape he dragged the weight of the world along behind him. _Perhaps not the world, _Alfred thought, _but certainly this city. _

Alfred had been growing more and more concerned over the past several days, since the latest escapes. The incident in Arkham that night where the ignoble Dr. Crane had attempted to infuse Batman with a toxin that was significantly different than his usual concoctions was the beginning of this latest downward spiral of Batman's spirit. Instead of inspiring fear it stirred up his emotions; triggering a towering rage that almost caused him to commit the unthinkable. It almost caused the Batman to kill. Alfred himself was forced to intervene and Batman's rage was quelled but Alfred suspected it left a haunting residue deep inside his old friend, his secret son. It left a stain upon the Batman's quest, and his purpose.

Batman straightened as much as his aching ribs allowed him to when he saw Alfred watching him from above and walked up the short flight of stairs to the main floor of the Batcave. Alfred greeted the master of Wayne Manor and received a question in reply, "Is he still here?"

"Yes Sir, Master Richard's wounds were superficial as I said. He will be unable to walk for the next few days, but in a short time he should completely recover, from his injuries." There was more to it however and Alfred was loathe to mention it.

Batman heard the unspoken 'but' in Alfred's tone and stopped his progress into the main area of his headquarters. Batman turned to his oldest friend, "But, there's more than the gunshot wounds."

Inwardly Alfred sighed but outwardly he maintained a strict unruffled demeanour, his concern barely showed in his voice. "Yes Master Bruce, there is." Alfred calmly explained the sample of water Nightwing had collected during his adventure in New York. Alfred had tested it and determined that it contained the same enzyme that they found in the sample of narcotics that Batman had collected on the night of the Arkham escapes. What was worse however, was that young Master Richard was infected with it. As they spoke the mysterious compound was binding to the young man's DNA and there was nothing they could do to stop it.

* * *

Inside the medical bay of the Batcave Richard Grayson lay on a narrow hospital cot, it's top half raised so he reclined in a sitting position. His mask and costume were replaced by a white T-shirt and a blanket that covered his damaged legs. The first thing Batman noticed was how pale he looked and wondered if that was from the loss of blood or his contamination.

Batman filled the doorway of the small medical chamber and Dick could not ignore his presence. He looked toward his mentor and just like in days past he attempted to lighten the oppressive mood the Batman seemed to inspire. A wry grin crept across his face as he said, "I know what you're thinking…"

But Batman would have none of his levity as he interrupted, "You have no idea what I'm thinking."

His smile faded and Dick cleared his throat and tried a different approach, "Okay look, you gave me this case and I followed where it led…"

Batman took a step into the room and everything else inside it seemed to diminish by his presence, including the young injured man. The fact that Bruce had not removed the cowl was not lost on Dick. Batman was angry but he kept his tone level and calm, "I sent you in to watch them, to gather information, not to engage."

"I didn't have a choice, first it was that woman, then the bombs, then the infected water…" As the words tumbled out Dick inwardly winced, even to his own ears he sounded like a petulant child offering excuses.

Batman held up his hand halting Dicks monologue. "Start at the beginning, and tell me everything."

Dick began with the rumor about a meeting that he had heard, it was big and almost all the major criminal organizations in New York were supposed to send representatives. By the time he found out where and when it was going to take place he had almost missed it. He got there only minutes before the first 'guests' arrived. He entered the building in secret, he had planned to plant listening devices and then quietly leave and listen to the meeting from a safe distance.

That's when he saw that he was not the only one moving in secret in the dark warehouse. He went to investigate, that's when he noticed the bombs. He realized the meeting was a trap, there were more than a dozen devices planted all over the place and he had surmised that it was the dark figure he saw that planted them. He moved in to intercept, to quietly subdue, then he realized it was a woman and somehow she knew he was there. "I hadn't made a sound and it was almost pitch black in there, there's no way she could have heard or saw me coming but somehow she did." She had told him he should leave, that she didn't plant the bombs but that they were wired into the power lines and that she had to get to the electrical room to disconnect them. "I didn't believe her at first, I thought maybe she had to get to the electrical room to detonate them. That's when she kicked me, she was fast and powerful. She sent me flying backward, away from the nearest bomb then she disappeared. That was when all hell broke loose."

When the lights in the building came on the bombs detonated but they didn't have the effect Dick had expected. "There were so many of the devices planted the entire building should have blown but all they did was start a series of fires all over the warehouse." Seconds later the sprinkler system came on and Dick noticed an odd taste to the water and took a sample. "I don't think she planted the bombs, all they did was initiate the sprinkler system. Whomever set them wanted to infect the people there, I'm infected, but she must be too because she was still there, soaked like the rest of us."

Dick went on to describe the gunfight he heard and when he went to investigate he found her again. Moments later the gangsters found them both, but again she saw them coming, she pushed him out of the way taking the bullet that was meant for him. Dick managed to get them both to relative safety, then she turned on him. He described their conversation word for word, "Then she shot me. Twice. She could have killed me, I suppose, I'm sure it was more than convenient then, but she didn't, she just… left." When he finished his story Dick waited for Batman to respond but he didn't, he just stood there, looking at him.

Batman had heard every word Dick said as he described the events that took place that night but the one thing his mind kept returning to was the bombs and another protégé he had lost to a bomb-blasted building. He had thought he had come to terms with Jason's demise. He still grieved and always would, and he thought he had put the guilt behind him but somehow it all came back… _It__'__s all your fault__…_

He stared at the young man, pale and wounded and he knew the guilt that would befall him if Dick had been seriously hurt or killed because _he_ had sent him there, _he_ had put him in harm's way. Now Dick was infected with something that was completely unknown; and if he ever came into contact with the catalyst there was no telling what this enzyme was programmed to do to his DNA. Dick may be here in the cave but he wasn't yet out of harm's way.

Risks, they all took too many risks. The fact that Batman too took risks with his life was different. The chances he took were carefully calculated, thoroughly thought-out and it was only his own life that he risked. But them; Dick, Tim, even Barbara, and Jason, he should never have introduced them to this life, romanticized it, made it seem like a thrilling adventure, and that's all it was to them, especially Jason. He failed to show them the truth of it, the hard reality. In spite of the grilling, the training, the lessons, he still failed to show them that no matter how good they were, there were always risks too great to wager their lives against.

Ultimately he was responsible for whatever happened to them because what they did they learned from him and the risks they took were because they saw him seemingly take astronomical chances with his own life. They didn't see or couldn't understand the calculations involved, all they saw was the idealized outcome. That was why he felt responsible for them, even after they moved away as Dick had. And yet here he was, wounded and infected. At that moment the responsibility of it was overwhelming.

Dick was becoming uncomfortable under the scrutiny and felt he needed to break the silence. "I did manage to get a blood sample after she left, Alfred's got it. He said…"

Batman interrupted him, his voice was calm and even but there was a distinctive edge to it. "Did it occur to you to take her weapon away from her before she shot you?"

"She just saved my life, I didn't think…"

"-No, you didn't." Batman turned to leave the room, his mood was darker now and if he didn't leave he might say something he would regret. "Stay here and recuperate, you can help Alfred run analyses." He said over his shoulder as he quickly walked away.

Dick watched him go and tried to squelch his own rising anger. He had to admit that yes, he should have taken her gun, that was a stupid mistake. But he had a gut feeling that she wasn't the real enemy here, in spite of the fact that she shot him, twice. By his count she had three opportunities to let him die or kill him herself and she didn't. No, Dick felt they had bigger problems than her and he wondered as he watched Batman walk away, which of the myriad of enemies were the most dangerous: The ones out in the world plotting their schemes with guns, bombs and poisons or the ones within ourselves.

* * *

_To be continued..._


	8. Chapter 8

**Goddess: Descention**

_**Book Three: Hunters**_

_**Part Seven: **__Capricious Queen_

* * *

**Queen and Huntress **

**_Earth, let not thy envious shade_**

**_Dare itself to interpose;_**

**_Cynthia__'__s shining orb was made_**

**_Heaven to clear, when day did close._**

**_Bless us then with wished sight,_**

**_Goddess excellently bright._**

_Ben Johnson_

_(1572-1637)_

* * *

___Capricious Queen_

_When man first looked up into the night sky the brightest object he saw other than the moon was Venus. She was both the morning and the evening stars because she travelled across the sky differently than most heavenly bodies. Venus rises in the east in the early morning hours before dawn and in the west in the evening after dusk but disappears behind the sun for weeks between these cycles. The dual nature of Venus in her celestial travels in the dome of the Earth's sky as both morning and evening stars reflect the disparaging reality of her radiance. From afar she is mysterious, beautiful, erratic and seemingly unrestrained by the rules that compel the other stars to their paths across the night sky. She is a rogue, and follows her own course._

_As man learned more and more about the world and it's place in the heavens, Venus too was better understood. She is Earth's sister or twin planet and several billions of years ago that may have been more true as Venus may have had substantial quantities of water on her surface. But it's oceans, the Venusian Maria, have long since evaporated due to the runaway greenhouse effect that has ruined her. The reality is that Venus is a hot, volcanic, rocky wasteland with poisonous air and winds that drive clouds of sulphuric acid which rain down on it's highest peaks. Venus was alive once perhaps, but her death throes have encompassed more than a billion years._

_Many ancient cultures believed that Venus was two separate entities including the early Greeks and Egyptians who even had different names and meanings for her morning and evening aspects. They could not know the toxic uninhabitable reality that was the real Venus. Other cultures knew her as a single entity and recognized her duality but all they saw from afar was her erotic beauty and her erratic eccentricity. But perhaps somehow, they knew that dark, barren and hostile side of her was there as well._

_The ancients of earth married their varied pantheons of deities to the celestial objects that shined in the velvet night and more often than not Venus was associated with a female deity. She embodied womanhood, both maiden and crone and their metaphysical counterparts; morning and night, life and death. In many myths she was a child of the bright moon and playfully she would dance in the night sky around her parent. Her cycles of disappearances behind the sun alluded to the capricious and unpredictable natures of these various Venusian goddesses: Fearful and ferocious, wise and wanton, fickle and forthright. To some long dead cultures she was the goddess of both love and war. In love she was both vivacious and vulnerable, but in war she was vicious and victorious. With one hand she would deliver a gentle caress and the other a killing blow. She was both victim and vanquisher. A sufferer of tremendous and terrible offences but her revenge was malicious, severe and inescapable. She was a mystery; the shining child of the moon, lady of the night and the bright queen of the sky._

_Excerpt from - _Of Mythology and Man:

The Guiding Stars of the Ancients

By Torrence J. Strattum PhD

Metropolis University

Metropolis

* * *

_New York City_

Nick drove into Brooklyn and headed toward the park where he was to meet Shay and several emotions rumbled around in his gut. He was relieved that she was alive but he worried because she didn't sound like herself on the phone. She was hurt and she tended to downplay things like that but since she called for help Nick could only assume it was serious. But Nick was more than a little angry. Two years without a word from her. Two years and not even a goodbye before she left. After everything they had accomplished, all the close calls, all the successes and a few failures. To Nick, Shay was more than a friend or partner, she was more akin to an estranged daughter, a child he'd missed watching grow up but one he could be proud of in adulthood nonetheless. And as a child she made some bad calls, and disappearing for two years without telling the people that cared about her, well, that was the worst call she had ever made as far as Nick was concerned.

He pulled onto the side road that led into the park. He expected to see Shay there already, hers was the shortest distance to travel, she should be waiting, but there was no sign of her. He parked on the street near the park's main entrance and waited. He considered driving around the perimeter of the area but he didn't want to miss her should she show up while he was gone. After a few minutes Nick got out of the truck and walked into the park. It was deserted and he circled the path near the entrance. She could be here, passed out maybe, if she was hurt bad enough to call for help…

The longer he waited the more he worried and a hundred dismal scenarios invaded his mind. Something was wrong, _she should be here already_. Nick pulled out his cell but knew he couldn't call her, her phone was untraceable. He considered thoroughly searching the park but that could take hours and Shay might not have that long. He looked down at his phone, willing it to ring but it stayed silent and dark.

Nick decided to use something Shay didn't know about, something he didn't want her to know about, but if using it saved her life, he hoped she could find it in her heart to forgive him. Nick went back to his truck and hooked up a seemingly older GPS device that he had 'updated'.

When he and Shay were partners he had equipped Shay's motorcycle with a device that he could monitor. Mostly it was used when Shay had to leave the bike unprotected, or if it was damaged; Nick would go in and pick it up. Shay allowed this only if there was a way for her to turn it off. Nick agreed, although reluctantly. When she disappeared she had indeed turned the device off, but what she didn't know was that Nick had rigged a power switch via a remote signal. The signal didn't have much range though, only about five miles or so. After she left Nick tried to find her using the device but it failed, he was too late and she was out of it's range. During the two years of her absence Nick had tried the device now and again hoping she might be in the city but the attempts were always unsuccessful. Now though Nick hoped she was within it's range and if it worked the bike's location would show up on the tiny GPS view-screen.

* * *

_New York City,_

_The New City_

The old Indian lay on it's side on a grassy hill, motionless and still. In the distance a dark form stood over another on the ground. Moonlight washed the small ravine with it's pale light but it could not wash away the darkness of the figure that haunted the clearing. The old Indian just lay there, it's lone headlight dark and blinded, like it's rider that lay prone at the mercy of the evil that threatened her. As the malevolent dark man knelt down beside her it seemed that she would join the fallen woman hidden in the trees beyond; a sacrifice in an insane ritual that made sense only in the mind of a madman.

The old Indian lay still, a mute and blind witness to the scene before it, but beneath it, hidden next to it's heart; it's motor, and powered by the beating that had only recently slowed then stopped a small blue light blinked on and began to flash.

/

A malevolent presence hovered over her and Shay felt it's vile intent. She also felt it's gratitude, perhaps in finding another victim so unexpectedly. Shay still could not see well, the world through her eyes was a dim collection of grey and black blurs; she had lost the perception of color. It was all part of the after-effects of what she had just experienced. The death of another was not new to her but it was always horrifying and left her weak and temporarily blinded. She had surmised that was due to all the images and experiences she shared with the dying; it overwhelmed her and the first thing her brain sacrificed in response was her vision and unfortunately it was also the last thing she would regain afterward. But this time she was slow to recover; the gunshot wound in her shoulder had seriously weakened her, she had lost a lot of blood, then there was the crash…

This whole night seemed to be a sequence of misfortunes; each one more terrible than the last. Briefly she thought of the omen: Her own face unrecognizable in a mirror. That too was not a new experience to her and it was always a portent of disaster. Now she lay barely able to move and at the mercy of a homicidal maniac but what was worse was that this whole experience, her helplessness, the dark mind that hovered over her, it all felt hauntingly familiar, as if this had happened to her before.

He crouched down beside Shay and she flinched when the shadow of his hand reached toward her. Shay fought against her weakness and concentrated on moving her right hand and reached for one of the shuriken she kept in pockets down the side of her armor from hip to knee. She slowly pulled one out and hid the small triangular blade in her hand as the killer reached over her head and pulled off her helmet. Her entire body hurt and she winced as the helmet came off. He stood up again and tossed the helmet aside. She needed the killer to come closer again if she was to have any chance. He was going to kill her, of that she was certain, but she wouldn't go quietly. If she could hurt him, maim him, even kill him… it was the least that he deserved after what he'd done tonight and what she suspected he had done before, perhaps many times.

She tried to lure him closer by speaking; "You… you killed her." it came out as a wheeze but it was all she could think to say; the frightening final journey of his last victim was still very much in her mind. His emotional response to her question was useful. He took a step back and Shay felt confusion emanating from him. That was good, she thought and she continued hoping to unbalance him, wrest some measure of the control of this situation away from him.

He looked down upon her, this dark and shining woman. He looked into her eyes; they were glazed, unfocused but somehow familiar. He could see the bloody rag on her shoulder; she was injured, helpless. He had been wondering what to do with this unexpected gift when she spoke… She knew!

Shay was armed by the shared experiences and death of the woman in the trees but those memories were already fading. Details of the woman's last few days and hours were swiftly waning from Shay's mind, leaving only the emotions behind. "You took her… you took her away, hid her… in the dark…" The last thing the woman felt before all she could feel was the pain and the terror was… " Hope…of freedom… then you took…you took that away too."

He looked back toward the clearing where the one he recently _liberated_ still lay. He knew she was there but he could not see the site of his ritual, how could this one know so much? He selected this area because it was impossible to see past the trees from the road in any direction, yet she knew things, how extraordinary. Perhaps she is more than a gift. He looked up again at the full and brilliant moon and he spied the bright pin-point of light just below it and then he understood… Born of the moon! He looked down again upon her and whispered,_ "Inanna."_ Shay looked up in the direction of his voice, she was startled. He had said a name she hadn't used for a lifetime. How could this psychopath know?

He saw the recognition on her face; it was she, Inanna incarnate! Oh this was truly a gift, confirmation that he was on the right path. It was Fate. He whispered the name again and Shay realized her mistake. It wasn't _Anna_, her childhood name he had said, it was _Inanna_ and she had no clue as to who that was, but he obviously did, and the name had a special meaning for him.

He knelt down beside her again and reached out to caress her face, and that's when Shay struck. She whipped out with her good hand and slashed blindly up at him. She cut him somewhere she could feel that much but he caught her extended hand. She grunted as the sharp blade cut into her armor then her flesh as he squeezed her hand closed around it. Then she gasped as he wrenched the shuriken out of her grip and took it. He folded her offending arm over her chest and leaned on it. She growled in pain and anger and tried to struggle but she was still too weak to offer much resistance. His other hand held her small weapon and he again reached toward her face to finish the interrupted caress…

_"Now is not the time for us, Inanna."_ He brought the back of his fingers against the side of her face and she could feel the latex glove he wore and she smelled the blood he smeared down her cheek. Then he whispered, _"Born of the moon with all the knowledge of the heavens and the earth."_ She could not understand his words or the emotions he exuded. He was excited, filled with a rapture she could not fathom. He adjusted her shuriken in his hand and slowly cut a line along her jaw just deep enough to draw blood. He whispered again, _"Prepare now for your descent, then we will meet again my sweet… Inanna."_ He rose, backed away and then he was gone. Shay lay there panting, she could feel her breath rattling around in her chest and her entire body throbbed. She could not believe he left her alive after what she felt happen to that other woman, the agony and the terror… Shay could still feel the rapture he radiated but it was fading as he moved further and further away.

* * *

Nick pulled his truck over to the shoulder of the deserted road, he was on top of the signal he'd been following. He peered down the ravine and saw Shay's motorcycle. He panned his flashlight around and spotted her helmet but there was no sign of her. He hopped over the guard-rail and slid down the dew-damp grass of the shallow hill and when he reached the bottom he spotted movement back against the tree-line beyond the clearing. Nick shined his light toward the trees and for the first time in two years he saw her and she looked terrible.

Shay staggered toward him, bent and limping and he ran to her. As he drew closer he could see her armor was scuffed and dirty. Her face, hidden behind the camouflage that was smeared and partly washed away, he could see she was pale and her expression was drawn with pain and he could also see the blood. When he reached her she all but collapsed against him. Her voice was strained and breathless when she said, "I'm sorry En, I didn't want to involve you..."

The anger he had felt before evaporated. "Don't you worry about that right now, lets just get you out of here." She only nodded, it was becoming more and more difficult to speak. Nick led her toward the truck but she stopped at the top of the hill.

"En, the bike first, and the helmet." Shay knew the body in the trees would be discovered and if her motorcycle and helmet were left, it could lead the authorities to Nick. It was unlikely but she couldn't take any chances. Nick tried to argue but Shay was adamant, in just a few hours this peaceful seeming area would become a crime-scene and any traces she left would become evidence, and she and now Nick had already left enough. Her blood, his tire tracks, footprints, all of it would be scrutinized, even in her weakened condition her own and Nick's anonymity was foremost in her thoughts.

As Nick walked the bike to the truck Shay leaned against the vehicle at the top of the hill and scanned the area. She could still feel the killer at the edge of her awareness. Her vision was mostly restored now and she watched the tree-line for any indication of his return. She did not sense him moving closer, but she didn't feel that he was moving away at the moment either, which was distressing. She briefly glanced at Nick as he loaded her bike into the back of his truck and she felt a sudden pang of fear for him. If the killer was close enough to see…

Shay didn't want to tell Nick about the dead woman in the trees, at least not now, he might be tempted to investigate himself and she wouldn't have the strength to stop him. Nick had a gentle soul, much more gentle than her own and she wanted to spare him the horror of the scene that she knew would haunt him, a memory he would want to forget. That's where she was when Nick found her, returning from the scene of the killer's 'ritual'.

She had to see it, Shay had to witness the scene for herself, she felt she owed the woman that much. She had to join the emotional horror of that poor woman's death with the reality of her tortured body but now Shay was sorry she went. The scene was beyond words. The woman was naked but covered in blood from her countless wounds. That monster brutalized her; along with a host of other atrocities he inflicted upon her the killer carved symbols into her flesh, mutilated her. When Shay looked upon the scene of the vicious murder she fully understood the fate she had so narrowly escaped. Escaped for now.

Shay tried concentrate on him, focus only on him, she needed to scan him as thoroughly as possible, if she managed to get deep enough she might be able to locate him again. She had to try to find out who he was but it was difficult and it wasn't just distance, she was getting weaker by the minute. Soon all her energy would be spent just trying to maintain consciousness. Shay knew stopping him wasn't her responsibility but this psychopath felt he had a connection with her now and that put Nick and herself in danger. Shay had a sick, disquieting feeling that she would meet this killer again and if that was to happen she wanted it to be on her terms.

* * *

He watched from the shadows, it was what he did. He watched from afar as she gazed into the trees, at the site of his latest offering. As injured as she was she still had to see his work and he had been gratified as he watched her stagger into the woods and he had smiled. He had known she would go to see it, he knew she couldn't resist. This one was special, this one had power, she shined. This one he would save for last. He watched as the other loaded the motorcycle into the truck and he watched as it helped her into the vehicle. He could almost feel her eyes flutter across him as she swept her gaze along the dark tree line where he hid. She knew he was still there, watching, she could not see him but she knew... He watched them drive away and he wondered, _There is something different about her, something... familiar._

He felt it deep inside his dark soul, this one stood apart from all the others, a gift. He would have to think up something suitably special for her. As the truck disappeared into the distance the watcher smiled once more, he was confident that Fate would bring them together again... _I will see you soon, Inanna._

* * *

_This story will continue in Goddess: Descention - Book Four: Fever._


End file.
